The United Service: A Quarterly Review of Military and Naval Affairs 1889-05: Vol 1

THE

UNITED SERVICE

May 1889.

INSTRUCTION IN ARMORIES.'

It has become a crystallized conviction in the minds of our people that
in the hour of emergent danger the reliance of this nation must be upon
the fidelity and intelligence of her citizen soldiery. No English-speaking
people has ever yet maintained a large standing army, and, as we ad-
vance year by year with colossal strides in the development of our mate-
rial resources, it becomes more and more the part of wisdom that a force
ready to be called into action in the hour of need should be formed and
fostered in times of public tranquillity, and this without permanently
withdrawing productive hands from the industries of the country or
encroaching upon the individual liberty of the citizen.

Never in the history of the world was the science and art of war
more complex, more intricate, more vastly comprehensive ; and never
has the necessity for intelligence among officers of all grades been
greater than to-day. Moreover, that which has been acquired by experi-
ence is slipping from our grasp. The veterans of ’65 are rapidly passing
away, carrying with them the valuable habits and lessons of disci-
pline so difficult of attainment in time of peace.’ Statistics show that
the military well-being of the States has already passed into new hands,
and is now largely intrusted to those who were yet children when the
great conflict ended at Appomattox. According to the reports rendered
during the last encampments (of the Ohio National Guard), the average
age of your company commanders is but thirty-six, and that of subal-
terns and enlisted men only twenty-four. After all, as General Sher-

1 Read before the annual meeting of the Ohio National Guard Association,
Columbus, Ohio. Revised by the author.

2 Indeed, as Captain Field says in his valuable paper on ‘‘ Battle Tactics,’’ ‘‘ The
conditions of war have so changed since we waged it that our experience is not much
to the point.”

Vou. I. N. S.—No. 5. 30

454 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

man has truly said, “ Every age produces its own workers, and the ex-
perience of mankind is that the agents of a former period are rarely
adapted to modern uses.” ‘This is especially true in relation to war,
for, as another distinguished military writer* has observed, “It is
doubtful if any period of the world’s history affords so many important
changes in the organization of armies, and in the elements of tactics,
and even of strategy, as the last twenty-five years.”

There is also a new and rapidly-widening field, to which our fathers
were comparative strangers, and which will require for its exercise the
highest military intelligence. This is found in the insurgent spirit of
anarchy which is growing in our large cities.

I therefore have to congratulate the National Guard upon the or-
ganization of this admirable association. It has been formed none too
soon. It furnishes most encouraging evidence of your appreciation of
the grave responsibilities with which men have to grapple in the pro-
fession of arms, and it may certainly be made a most potent agency for
your own professional improvement and for the development of a much-
needed military spirit among the people. . . .

* * * * *

Among the many changes wrought in war by rapid-firing arms,
one of the most noticeable has been the increased relative importance of
the company, battery, and troop commander. An accepted military
authority says, “ All recent experience shows that the result of a battle
under fire of breech-loaders depends in a very large measure upon the
skill of the commanders of small units ;” and further he adds, “ It cannot
be denied that the danger of sudden destruction to an army in battle is
now far greater than it used to be, that a mistake or false step is more
likely to lead to fatal consequences, and that troops under fire must be
handled with more skill, particularly among company commanders, and
must themselves have more intelligence than was necessary before the
days of the breech-loader.” Owing to the rapid losses under modern
fire, the command of a company is liable to pass in the very first stages
of an action to the first or second lieutenant, or even to a sergeant or
corporal, and this whether in a barricaded street or on the open plain.
Hence the greatly-increased importance of the subject we are now to
consider,—viz., the thorough instruction in armories of company officers
and non-commissioned officers in the elementary principles of the military
art.

Much valuable time is wasted during the winter months in the
acquirement of accomplishments of little or no military value. General
Drum, in his annual report for 1887, says, “ It is evident that still many
earnest workers in bringing up the militia to its highest efficiency seem
to regard mechanical perfection as the great desideratum in the art of
war ;” and General Vogdes, referring to the same subject, observes, ‘‘ It

* * *

5 Captain Greene.

1889. INSTRUCTION IN ARMORIES. 455

is unfortunate for us, both for the regular army and the volunteer ser-
vice, that so much attention is paid to things of very little or no conse-
quence. ~You want to teach the men everything they will have to do
when actually in the field. Take up any of the military papers, and
what do we see? Page after page occupied about things of little prac-
tical use,—fancy marching and all that. It is all very fine, but it is
not war.” To all of which General Sherman adds this testimony:
“The older I become the more convinced am I that . . . the good of
the country calls for the practice of the simpler and easier parts of our
profession.”

I. The first, and probably most conspicuous, defect of the National
Guard—not only in Ohio, but in all the States—is in guard-duty, yet,
considering the great interests that are often committed to your keep-
ing, it is of the very first importance. The officer who inspected the
Maine troops last year (1887) writes: “Guard-duty is poorly done.
This is the weak point of the Maine militia. When I visited the
guard-tent both officers of the guard were absent.”’ The inspector of
the Pennsylvania forces reports: “The most conspicuous defect is their
general ignorance, from want of practice, of the duties of sentinels.”
In Indiana “ guard-duty was performed in a very slovenly manner.”
In Minnesota the troops “did not attach much importance to sentry
duty,” and in Vermont “it was done in a very careless way.” The
report from Alabama shows “it was only fairly performed,” while in
New York “ it was well done in some respects, in others less so.” Re-
ports from many other States might be quoted to the same effect.‘

To cure this grave defect guard-mountings should be held occasion-
ally throughout the year, but guard-duty should never be omitted.
Care should be taken that every man takes his tour in regular order,
the first sergeant keeping the roster and posting the detail on a bulle-
tin-board, with which every armory should be provided. It will be
found that very few men are familiar with the insignia of the various
grades, and know but little of the manner in which they are classified
by our organization into field, staff, line, ete. A brief explanation
should be made of these distinctions, and the various shoulder-straps
and cuff-braids indicated by drawings on a blackboard. The eye will
learn more quickly than the ear. Salutes will be improperly or awk-
wardly rendered, and calls and challenges will be almost as often wrong
as right. All these errors can be eliminated by a persistent course of
instruction in the armories, and this will be found to possess a positive
value, not only in developing the interest of the men and strengthening

4 The recent reports (1888) indicate marked improvement in New York and
Pennsylvania; but in New Hampshire and North Carolina “ guard-duty was not as
well performed as it should have been;” in Illinois ‘‘ very few were found who
knew anything of the duties of a sentinel ;” and in Indiana the guard ‘‘ was con-
ducted and maintained in a wholly irregular and unsoldierly manner.”’

456 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

the morale of the company, but in augmenting the moral force of the
commander himself. Lack of such instruction, says Colonel von der
Goltz, of the German army, “always causes voids to be felt, makes us
doubtful and apprehensive, disorders the imagination, weakens the
power of determination, and is already the beginning of demoraliza-
tion.” Our own experience teaches us that nothing is so quickly de-
tected by a mob as a seeming want of confidence and resolution, and
the hesitating, awkward, and sometimes ridiculous performances of a
half-instructed sentry will actually add fuel to the flame at the very
critical moment when the display of every military virtue is of para-
mount importance.

Guard-duty can be made interesting to men; it affords a pleasant
relief to the humdrum routine of company drill, and I have found, by
experience with certain companies with which I have been associated,
that in a few weeks it can be learned and performed by national guards-
men with all the precision of veterans. The chief difficulty, I appre-
hend, in teaching this important duty is probably a lack of apprecia-
tion of its grave responsibility. Men should be made to understand
that it is the most dignified, responsible, and honorable duty a soldier
can perform. It is a sacred trust. When a sentry is given charge of
a post he is for the time being and from the very necessity of the case
the absolute autocrat in and over that place. All persons, of whatsoever
condition, rank, or degree, must recognize his dignity and respect his
authority. This principle has been acknowledged ever since the days
of Joshua ; it is recognized by the law of nations and is fixed in the
statutes and customs of every civilized country the world over. Military
power is a one-man power, and nowhere does it more fully find its ex-
emplification than in the duty and authority of the sentinel. This point
received a forcibleillustration in our ownservice, a few months ago, where
a sergeant of the guard shot and killed an escaping prisoner. The case
was taken before the United States Circuit Court, and, after very care-
ful deliberation by that tribunal, the accused was duly acquitted, com-
plimented on his fidelity, and restored to duty. I am sure if its
character were better understood by the National Guard we should see a
marked improvement both in the respect paid to sentinels and in the
becoming discharge of their duty. It is needless to add that a good
manual of guard-duty should be in the hands of every non-commis-
sioned officer, in which they should be required to stand periodical ex-
aminations.

II. There seems to be a tendency, since the invention of the breech-
loader, to cast aside the bayonet and sword exercise, as obsolete and of
no further utility in war. Captain James, of the British Royal Engi-
neers, says, “ We see in modern wars no attempt to push the enemy from
the position he holds, and henceforth it is to fire, and not to hand-to-
hand conflicts, that we must look for the decision of the fight ;” but an

1889. INSTRUCTION IN ARMORIES. 457

examination of the last two great wars in Europe will not warrant this
conclusion. In Martin’s “ History of France” we learn that at the
very first engagement—that of Saarbriicken—‘‘ each new position
had to be taken at the point of the bayonet.” Describing the battle of
Weissenburg, the same writer says again, “ The intrenchments were
carried at the point of the bayonet.” Another narrative says, “ At St.
Privat the houses had to be stormed in succession.” At Shipka Pass
the assaulting Turks not only lived long enough under the “ withering
fire” of the defenders to reach their position, but, says Captain Greene,
they once actually got into the Russian trenches and were only driven
out “after a hand-to-hand struggle, in which the bayonet was very
freely used.” Captain Greene, who personally witnessed many of these
engagements, cites numerous other instances—Gorni-Dubnik, Shenova,
Lortcha—which were decided by hand-to-hand encounters, and con-
cludes that “ hand-to-hand fights are not a thing of the past, in spite
of breech-loaders and trenches.” If this be true, the bayonet has
lost none of its importance as a weapon and as an element of strength
in that force which excels in its use. I would suggest more careful
attention, therefore, to this feature of instruction as well as to sword
and sabre exercise and fencing, for certainly no officer should have a
warlike weapon dangling at his side merely as an ornament. Indeed,
it may be doubted if he can even wear it gracefully who does not know
how to handle it. The eye of the veriest street gamin will detect the
nervous fumbling of a novice, and nothing so quickly robs a man of
his soldierly bearing as the consciousness that the admiring multitude
have sized him up and set him down as a military ass.

III. It seems hardly necessary, in this day of precise weapons and
long ranges, to urge the importance of rifle and carbine practice, point-
ing and aiming drills, and the careful handling and preservation of
arms. General Drum, in his annual report (1887) says, “ With the
liberal increase of the appropriation made by Congress at its last session
for the benefit of the militia it is earnestly hoped that the State mili-
tary authorities will, by an increased allowance of ammunition, foster
and develop the efficiency of the rank and file in target-firing.” The
rapid development in power and range of all fire weapons has sud-
denly brought rifle practice into great prominence. It is estimated
that the Springfield rifle will cover a range of three thousand eight
hundred yards, and that it will probably disable as far as it will carry.
In the war of 1877, between Russia and Turkey, losses from infantry
fire were experienced at three thousand yards, and at two thousand
yards down to a mile they became very serious. A trained infantry-
fire will therefore compel advancing bodies to deploy into thin lines at
two miles in the open from a defender’s position, and in all encounters
at shorter ranges, especially in street engagements, the expert use of
the rifle will prove of immense advantage to both the attack and de-

458 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

fense. It has also been suggested that for street fighting the ability to
fire from the left shoulder would be found advantageous, and a portion
of the rifleman’s practice might profitably be devoted to this exercise.
Cavalry will still continue in future wars to be the eyes and screen of
the army ; it must often act separately, protecting the flanks and keep-
ing the enemy in check, and it is now laid down as an accepted princi-
ple, evolved from the great improvements in weapons, that in future
conflicts “the earlier fighting, and that which will have an important
effect upon the spirit of the troops, will be battles of cavalry and horse-
artillery against cavalry and horse-artillery.” These arms should
therefore be fostered and receive far more attention than is now devoted
to them in the United States. Skill in the use of his carbine and re-
volver, especially when mounted and in motion, has become more than
ever an essential accomplishment of the beaw sabreur.

* * * * * * * *

I appreciate the difficulties of procuring proper ranges and the
necessary time and other grave discouragements by which the path of
the national guardsman is beset, but no doubt much could be accom-
plished in elementary instruction and gallery practice during the
winter, preparatory to more practical work on the range in camp.

IV. A reliable system of immediate communication between
widely-separated points has become an indispensable adjunct to the .
operations of war. The telegraph will, of course, be employed for this
purpose wherever practicable, but occasions will often arise where the
intervening space is held by the enemy, or the air-lines may be de-
stroyed by the hostile artillery, as was done at the siege of Paris.
Provision must therefore be made for visual signaling. So apparent
does this necessity appear, that there would seem to be required an
apology for urging it, were it not for the fact that such simple precau-
tions are often neglected till the battle is on and our repentance comes
too late. This was the case in the last great war, where it is said “ no
such thing existed in the Turkish army as a system of sending flag-
messages.” In fact, “they did not possess a signal organization of any
kind.” <A very simple code, consisting of the English Morse alphabet
with a cipher disk, is now used by the army and navy. Its adoption
would form another interesting feature of armory instruction, and
might be found of immeasurable benefit in the suppression of riots. To
paralyze the power of the authorities the mob will seek to cut the tele-
graph, shut off the gas and electric light, and gain control of the water
supply. “Flag and torch signaling,” writes General Molineux, “ af-
ford the only absolutely safe and certain means of overcoming this
difficulty.” Every armory should therefore be provided with a signal-
kit. For purposes of instruction a home-made article at small outlay
will answer all practical purposes.

V. Some attention might profitably be devoted in armories to mili-

’

1889. INSTRUCTION IN ARMORIES. 459

tary elocution, or the method of giving commands. An artillery of-
ficer of our service, referring to this subject, says, “ Commands for
infantry should be short, sharp, and expressive. Light-battery com-
mands, on the contrary, should not be short and sharp; they should be
long and musical, and they should be sung ;” and this applies also to
cavalry. “We may laugh,” he continues, “at the sing-song tones of
light-battery commanders, and think them absurd ; they are not ; they
are necessary, and if the objectors were to drill a few times under a
crusty commander, with a battery at a trot on a hard field, they would
find out all about it.” Where can you find a more appropriate place
for this vocal culture than the armory? and if it were occasionally
visited during the year by the field and staff for this purpose it would
no doubt result in a great saving of tissue. In one of the camps last
summer I met an officer at the breakfast-table who could only speak in
painful whispers. I inquired, “Colonel, you have a bad cold this
morning?” Gazing earnestly at me a moment, he convulsively clutched
at his throat and gasped, “No, not cold. It was battalion drill !”

VI. Another feature of armory instruction which is receiving con-
siderable attention abroad and, to some extent, in our Eastern States, is
skirmish drill by means of whistle-signals. This was a favorite idea
with General Upton, and its adoption would seem ultimately to be
necessary, owing to the great spaces now covered by deployed lines and
the increasing din of battle. A German officer, referring to this sub-
ject, says, “The noise of the breech-loader drowns the sound of the
human voice, so that a great part of the men cannot hear the word
of command.” A shrill whistle with a simple code of signals
might be devised. The only one with which I am acquainted, now
in use in some of the Eastern States, does not seem to be free from
defects.

VII. Finally, I would recommend the establishment, where prac-
ticable, of an armory reading- and recreation-room, and the gradual
formation of a military library. The room might also be provided
with cards, chess, checkers, and, if possible, with billiards or a pool-
table; but the reading-room proper should be kept quiet and provided
with interesting service magazines and periodicals.

Care should be taken at all times to maintain the moral tone of the
command and to have it distinctly understood in the community that
none but gentlemen can gain admission to the ranks of the company.
A company commander recently said to me that he had great difficulty
in obtaining acceptable recruits because of the unwillingness of parents
to have their sons identified with an organization of questionable moral
influence. Profanity should never be tolerated in the armory. It is a
crime at military law, and should, of course, be banished from the
social as well as official intercourse of gentlemen. Public opinion con-
demns it, and this sentiment must be respected. Washington issued

460 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

repeated orders against this “ unmeaning and abominable custom,” ® and
a study of the lives of the eminent soldiers of later times—Grant, and
Hancock, and McClellan, and Lee, and Jackson, and Gordon—shows
that this vice is not essential to success in the business of war.®

The National Guard is something more than a mere police force for
the present ; and it should not be content with the modest acquirement
of a little precision with the sabre or at the piece, or excellence in the
manual of arms, or in the imposing grandeur of a street parade. I con-
sider the National Guard as a great school of preparation for the future,
in which every young man may carry in his knapsack the stars of a
general. Colonel Clarke, of the Seventh New York Regiment, says
that during the War of the Rebellion that single regiment furnished the
regular and volunteer armies with six hundred and six officers, and
other regiments have similar proud records; and General Sherman
observes that “at the close of our civil war some of our best corps and
division generals, as well as staff officers, were from civil life. But I
cannot recall any of the most successful who did not express a regret
that he had not received in early life instruction in the elementary
principles of the art of war.”’ A forcible writer® also warns us that
modern wars rise suddenly and are of short duration. The Franco-
Prussian war lasted but seven months. The war between Russia and
Turkey ended in nine months. There is no time for preparation after
the cloud has burst. The citizen must immediately become the sol-

dier, the national guardsman the officer. His intelligence, his informa-
tion, his skill and training are in demand. Promotion is rapid, and
the deserving go up by leaps and bounds. But with increased rank
comes increased responsibility. ‘The tendency of science in military
life,” writes a distinguished army surgeon, “is to eliminate chance and
hold some one responsible for accidents.”® War under the most
vigilant management is always enormously expensive. Abuses will

5 «« HEAD-QUARTERS Moorx’s Hovusz, West Pornt, July 29, 1779.

‘‘Many and pointed orders have been issued against that unmeaning and
abominable custom of swearing, notwithstanding which, with much regret, the
general observes that it prevails, if possible, more than ever; his feelings are con-
tinually wounded by the oaths and imprecations of the soldiers whenever he is
within hearing of them. . . . If officers would make it a rule to reprimand, and, if
that does not do, punish soldiers for offenses of this kind, it could not fail of having
the desired effect.

(Signed) ‘‘GzorcE WasHINGTON.”’

6 General Hancock wrote from Chancellorsville: ‘‘ It seems that Providence for
some wise purpose intended our defeat. The day before the fight Hooker said to a
general officer, ‘God Almighty could not prevent me from winning a victory
to-morrow.’ He told Mr. Lincoln he would either win a victory or be in hell. The
President told him to ‘carry plenty of water along.’ Success cannot come to us
through such profanity.”

7 Memoirs.

8 Lieutenant Wagner, Prize Essay, M. S. I.

* Surgeon George M. Sternberg, in Journal M. S. I., No. 21.

1889. INSTRUCTION IN ARMORIES. 461

constantly creep in and blunders are ever recurring. In the Egyp-
tian campaign of 1882 the hay furnished to the cavalry was found ,
to be musty and weighted with stones and bricks. The branding-irons
used to mark the mules were reported by an investigating committee
of Parliament to be as large as frying-pans, completely disabling the
animals for the campaign. The quartermaster’s transportation was so
deficient that many outlying detachments were actually starving be-
fore supplies reached them; and men in hospitals failed to receive
proper care through lack of medical supplies. In the Crimean war the
troops were suffering for boots, many being barefoot in the midst of an
inclement season. After a long delay the boots arrived ; upon opening
the boxes they were found to be all for the left foot! In the French
army the trousers recently accepted and issued to the troops were
found to be several inches too small around the waist. History abounds
with similar illustrations showing the defects of our own policy, which
has always been to be “ more saving of peace taxes than of war debt.”
Fortunate the officer who through brief preparation in time of peace
shall escape the humiliation and disgrace of blunders, abuses, and
ignorance. . . .

Said the Duke of Wellington, “There is nothing so necessary as to
look forward to future wars and to our early preparation for them.
Our wars have always been long and ruinous in expense, because we
were unable to prepare for the operations which brought them to a
close for years after they were commenced. But this system will no
longer answer.” And General Sherman, upon the occasion of his re-
tirement from the army, said, “I cannot help plead to my countrymen
at every opportunity to cherish all that is manly and noble in the mili-
tary profession, because peace is enervating and no man is wise enough
to foretell when soldiers may be in demand again.”

A. C, SHARPE,
First Tieutenant U.S.A.

10 Sir Charles Dilke, ‘‘ The British Army.”

THE UNITED SERVICE.

THE SINKING OF THE “ALABAMA.”

THE engagement between the “ Kearsarge” and the “ Alabama” being,
I think, the only one during the Rebellion that took place on the high
seas, where vessels are free to manceuvre and skill in handling them
can be brought into play, was an important one, for it not only freed »
the seas of a rover but little better than the pirates of former times, but
it also showed, in addition, what a deliberate and well-directed fire
could do in a fight between two vessels that were otherwise about
equally matched. Before entering on the details of this engagement
I will give a brief description of the two vessels, so as to draw a
comparison.

The “Kearsarge,” commanded by Captain John A. Winslow,
United States Navy, was a wooden, bark-rigged, screw steamer, two
hundred and fourteen feet long and a thousand and thirty tons. Her
battery consisted of two 11-inch smooth-bore pivots, one 30-pounder
rifled pivot, and four light 32-pounder smooth-bores on her broadside,—
seven guns in all, By means of the pivot guns she could fight five
guns on a side, thus throwing a broadside of three hundred and sixty-
four pounds in shells. Her complement on the day of the fight was
one hundred and sixty-three officers and men. These, with the excep-
tion of eleven, were all Americans. About a year previous to this bat-
tle, while at anchor off the town of Horta, island of Fayal, one of the
Azores, the sheet-chain had been stopped, in bights, along the side, in
wake of the boilers and engines, to protect them from shot, if short of
coal. The space so covered was fifty feet long and six wide. The
chain was covered with inch boards, to prevent dirt from lodging in
the links. She sailed from home February 4, 1862.

The “Alabama,” commanded by Raphael Semmes, formerly an
officer in the United States Navy, was a wooden, bark-rigged, screw
steamer, two hundred and twenty feet long and eleven hundred and
fifty tons. Her battery consisted of one 68-pounder (8-inch) smooth-
bore pivot, one 110-pounder (7-inch) rifle pivot, and six heavy 32-
pounder smooth-bores on her broadside,—eight guns in all. She threw
a broadside in shells amounting to three hundred and four pounds. In
the fight she transported two of her broadside guns, thus raising the

1889. THE SINKING OF THE “ALABAMA.” 463

weight of her broadside to three hundred and eighty-eight pounds.
On her wheel was the motto “ Aide toi, et Dieu t’aidera.” Her com-.
plement of officers and men was about one hundred and seventy. Her
crew was composed almost entirely of Englishmen, many of whom had
belonged to the Naval Reserve, and had been trained in the gunnery
ship “ Excellent.” She sailed from Liverpool on her first cruise July
29, 1862.

It is hardly necessary for me to speak of her notorious career. For
nearly two years she had roamed hither and thither, visiting nearly
every quarter of the globe, burning and destroying peaceable vessels
of the United States merchant marine wherever found, and dexterously
avoided every effort of the United States Navy to capture her. It is
believed that the only attack she made on an armed vessel was a short
encounter with the gunboat “ Hatteras,”’ off Galveston, in January, 1863,
in which the “ Hatteras” was sunk. The “ Hatteras” was.a light-built
paddle-wheel steamer, carrying four or five light guns.

The above sketches show that the vessels were about equally
matched, the “Alabama” being six feet longer, a hundred tons
heavier, and in the fight threw a broadside heavier by twenty-four
pounds than the “ Kearsarge.”’

The “Alabama” arrived at Cherbourg, France, from Cape Town,
June 12, 1864, The “ Kearsarge” arrived the next day from a cruise.
Captain Winslow, having learned that Semmes wished to engage

him, left the harbor, and stood off and on, waiting for him to come
out .

_ About ten o’clock Sunday morning, June 19, 1864, while laying
off and on the port of Cherbourg, the officer of the deck aboard the
“ Kearsarge,” she being then distant about three miles from the east-
ern end of the breakwater, saw the rebel cruiser “ Alabama” coming
around the western end, accompanied by the French ironclad “ Cour-
onne” and a fore-and-aft-rigged steamer flying the white English
ensign and a yacht flag. In order to draw the “Alabama” well
beyond the line of French jurisdiction, one marine league, the “ Kear-
sarge” was headed off shore, and she steamed in that direction some
four miles, in the mean time clearing for action. Having attained
this distance, some seven miles from shore, she was put about, and
headed for the “Alabama,” with the intention of ramming her, if
possible. The “ Kearsarge” had hardly come about when the “ Ala-
bama” sheered so as to bring her starboard battery to bear, and then
slowed down. When the ships were about a mile from each other
the “‘ Alabama” fired her whole broadside, the “ Kearsarge” receiving
but little damage from it, the shot cutting some gear and going over
and alongside of her. The speed of the “ Kearsarge” was then in-
creased, and the “Alabama” fired two more broadsides, no damage
being received except in the rigging. Being now about a thousand

464 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

yards from the “Alabama,” and not wishing to be raked at that dis-
tance, Winslow sheered the “ Kearsarge,” and immediately opened fire
with the starboard battery. The first gun was fired from the “ Kear-
sarge” about eleven o’clock. The vessels were now broadside to each
other. Semmes did not, apparently, wish to engage at short range,
and to prevent him from running towards shore if disabled, Wins-
low determined to rake him, if possible, and therefore kept on at
full speed, thus forcing Semmes to fight in a circle or to receive a
raking fire. From this mancuvring of the “Kearsarge” a circular
course was kept by the ships until the end of the battle. At first
the fire of the “Alabama” was rapid and wild, but it improved a
little towards the end. It is said that Semmes ordered rapid fire at
first, in order to frighten the Yankees, knowing that nearly all the
officers and crew of the “ Kearsarge” were volunteers from the mer-
chant service. At the end of a quarter of an hour, the “ Kearsarge”
still continuing the fight in the same cool, leisurely manner, Semmes
remarked, “‘ Damn them, they have been fighting twenty minutes, and
they are as cool as posts.”

The crew of the “ Kearsarge” had been cautioned against rapid fire
without direct aim, and the captains of the 11-inch pivots had been
told to point rather below than above the water-line, thus giving
chances for ricochet shots. The lighter guns were used to clear
the decks. The efficiency of the fire of the “ Kearsarge” was very
perceptible, every shot telling on the “‘ Alabama” with fearful effect,
showing that the time spent in training her gun-captains had not been
lost.

While moving around on the seventh turn of the circular track
the “ Alabama” winded and set fore-and-aft sail, with her head towards
shore. She now presented her port battery, with but two guns bearing,
having been able, as was afterwards learned, to shift over but one. She
was now at the mercy of the “ Kearsarge,” and a few more well-directed
shots brought down her colors. Whether they had been hauled down
or shot away Winslow was at the time unable to determine. All during
the action Winslow, by free use of the port helm, had been endeavor-
ing to close in with the “ Alabama,” for the purpose of using grape ;
being now in a position to do so, he was prevented, for at this moment
a white flag was shown over the stern of the “ Alabama,” and Winslow,
after seeing it, ceased firing, as a matter of course. Not many minutes
had elapsed, however, after the display of this flag by the “ Alabama,”
when she again opened fire with her port guns. The “ Kearsarge”
immediately returned this fire, and was laid across the bows of the
“ Alabama” for raking ; but Winslow, seeing the white flag still flying,
again held his fire. Soon after this, about noon, the “ Alabama”
lowered her boats, and an officer came alongside the “ Kearsarge” and
surrendered the ship. He told Captain Winslow that the “ Alabama”

1889. THE SINKING OF THE “ ALABAMA.” . 465

was sinking rapidly, and requested assistance. ‘This officer requested
that he might be allowed to return, in order to assist in picking up his
shipmates that were struggling in the water. Winslow granted his
request, and at the same time sent the launch and second cutter of the
“ Kearsarge” to the rescue, they being the only boats available, the rest
having been damaged in the action. The English yacht that had come
out from Cherbourg with the “Alabama” had been steaming about
during the action, out of harm’s way, and, being now near at hand,
was hailed by Captain Winslow, and requested to render the sinking
ship assistance. This yacht was the “ Deerhound,” owned by a Mr.
Lancaster, who was on board, and he readily complied with Winslow’s
request. While the boats of the “Kearsarge” and “ Alabama” and
some from a couple of pilot-boats were busily engaged in bringing the
wounded and rescued from the “ Alabama” to the “ Kearsarge,” the
“Deerhound” steamed about, as if looking for men drifting in the
current, and having gained some little distance by this manceuvring,
and taking advantage of the hazy atmosphere, started at full speed for
the English coast, taking with her all those she had picked up, includ-
ing Semmes and the officer who had surrendered the ship, who had, for
the sake of humanity, been allowed to leave the side of the “ Kear-
sarge.” When it was reported to Winslow that the yacht was stealing
off with the prisoners he thought it impossible, and was not convinced
until it was too late to act. It was afterwards learned that the “ Deer-
hound” was acting as a consort to the “ Alabama,” a greater part of
Semmes’s valuable personal property having been transferred to her the
night before.

Twenty minutes after the “ Alabama” had surrendered she sank,
stern first, in forty. fathoms of water, her mainmast going by the board
as she settled down. After the battle the “ Kearsarge” returned to
Cherbourg.

During this action of an hour the “ Kearsarge” fired one hundred
and seventy-one projectiles, using five guns. Fifty-five 11-inch shell,
forty-eight 30-pounder rifle percussion shell, eighteen 32-pounder shell,
forty -32-pounder shot, and ten 12-pounder howitzer shell,—this was
the official report made by the gunner after the action. The use of the
12-pounder howitzer in the action only created laughter among the
crew. ‘Two old quartermasters, the two Dromios of the “ Kearsarge,”
were put in charge of this howitzer, with instructions to fire it when
they received orders. These two old salts, not relishing the idea of
having nothing to do while their shipmates were so actively engaged,
opened fire with their diminutive piece, alternating the discharges with
vituperations of each other. The officers allowed this farce to continue
until the single box of ammunition was exhausted. It is stated that
the “ Alabama” used seven of her guns, and fired three hundred and
seventy projectiles of various kinds; but twenty-seven of these struck

466 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

the “ Kearsarge,” thirteen being on her hull. One 7-inch rifle shell
struck and lodged in her stern-post, but failed to explode ; if it had, the
result of the battle might have been reversed. On the.“ Kearsarge”
the casualties were but three wounded, all by the same shot. Accord-
ing to the account of prisoners, the fire of the “ Kearsarge” was terrific,
one shot alone killing and wounding eighteen men. The loss on the
“ Alabama,” in killed and wounded, was thirty-nine.

Extracts from reports made by Captain Winslow to the Secre-
tary of the Navy read: “I have the honor to inform the Depart-
ment that the day subsequent to the arrival of the ‘ Kearsarge’ off
this port, Cherbourg, on the 14th inst., I received a note from Cap-
tain Semmes, begging that the ‘ Kearsarge’ would not depart, as he
intended to fight her, and would delay her but a day or two.
According to this notice, the ‘Alabama’ left Cherbourg this morn-
ing, June 19, about half-past nine. At the end of an hour’s fight-
ing the ‘Alabama’ struck, going down about twenty minutes later,
carrying many persons with her.” Captain Winslow further states
that his reason for not chasing or firing upon the “ Deerhound,”
while making off, was that he could not believe that any one carry-
ing the flag of the Royal Yacht Squadron could act so dishonorable a
part as to carry off his prisoners, whom he had been requested to save
from feelings of humanity, and that he regrets very much that he was
mistaken in this belief. In reply, the Secretary of the Navy says, “ It
is to be regretted that the confidence and generous sympathy which you
exercised should have been abused by the commander of the ‘ Deer-
hound,’ an English vessel of the Royal Yacht Squadron. That the
commander of the sunken corsair should have resorted to any dishon-
orable means of escape after his surrender, that he should have thrown
overboard his sword that was no longer his, are not matters of surprise,
as these acts are characteristic of one who has been false to his country
and flag. You could not have expected gentlemen, or those claim-
ing to be gentlemen, would, on such an occasion, act in bad faith, and
that, having been called upon or permitted to assist in rescuing per-
sons or property which had been surrendered to you, would rum away
with either.”

After his arrival in England Semmes made every possible excuse
for his defeat. He started by saying that Winslow challenged him,
and that he was forced by public opinion to fight him. That he was
greatly overmatched, the “ Kearsarge” being by far the better vessel ;
that he did not know until after the action that she was ironclad ; that
the “ Alabama” was sorely in need of repairs; her copper was off and
her bottom covered with long weeds.

For Winslow to have challenged Semmes would have been directly
contrary to the regulations. The following letter will show who sent
the challenge, if it can be called so:

1889. THE SINKING OF THE “ALABAMA.” 467

‘‘ CONFEDERATE STATES STEAMER ‘ ALABAMA,’
‘¢ CHERBOURG, June 14, 1864.

“Srr,—I hear that you were informed by the United States consul
that the ‘ Kearsarge’ was to come to this port solely for the prisoners
landed by me, and that she was to depart in twenty-four hours. I
desire you to say to the United States consul that my intention is to
fight the ‘ Kearsarge’ as soon as I can make the necessary arrange-
ments. I hope these will not detain me more than until to-morrow
evening, or after-to-morrow morning at furthest. I beg she will not
depart before I am ready to go out.

“T have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

“R. SeEMMES, Captain.

“To Ap. Bonrits, Esq., CHERBOURG.’’

Mons. Bonfils was the rebel consul or agent at Cherbourg. The
United States consul at Cherbourg denied ever having given any such
information to Mons. Bonfils. Semmes claims to have had but one
hundred and twenty, all told, on board at the time of the fight. Offi-
cial figures show, however, that he had nearly one hundred and forty,
accounted for as follows: Picked up by the * Kearsarge,” sixty-seven ;
reported as drowned, thirteen ; saved by French pilot-boats, seventeen ;
saved by the “ Deerhound,” forty-one. It is known that the “ Ala-
bama” carried one hundred and fifty officers and men into Cherbourg,
and prisoners state that the night before the action boats were plying
between the “ Alabama” and the “ Deerhound,” and in the morning
strange men were seen, who were stationed as captains of the guns;
these were supposed to be Naval Reserve men, brought over by the
“ Deerhound.” It was Semmes’s own fault, if he did not know that the
“ Kearsarge” had her chain over the side, as it had been carried that
way for a year ; if it was a secret, it was an open one, as she was always
open to inspection. It is rumored that, while she was at Cork, the
commanding officer of the guard-ship “ Hawke” inspected her, under
orders, and to report the condition of her armament especially. If in
this inspection the commander of the “ Hawke” failed to see this chain,
that was in plain sight, was it the fault of the officers of the “ Kear-
sarge?” Semmes also states that this chain brought her down in the
water. This is simply absurd, as the chain was part of her regular
equipment, and could not possibly make any difference in her line of
flotation, whether it was stowed in the locker or hung over the side.
Semmes filled up with coal previous to going out, in order to protect
his boilers. Semmes thought he was fully prepared for the fight, as
he was five days, instead of two, as his letter had stated, in getting
ready, and the following extract from Semmes’s report to Mr. Mason,
his representative in England, shows the condition his ship was in: “ I
cannot deny myself the pleasure of saying that Mr. Kell, my first lieu-

468 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

tenant, deserves great credit for the fine condition in which the ship
went into action.” If not ready, how came she to be in such fine con-
dition? Winslow’s preparations were made while under way ; Semmes’s
were made in port. I think I have shown previously that the ships
were about equally matched.

The following is given as the manner of Semmes’s escape to the
“ Deerhound.” One of the “ Deerhound’s” boats was steering towards
a group of about a dozen struggling persons, when the coxswain saw a
drowning man at a little distance with an officer’s cap on. One of the
boat’s crew said, “ That’s Semmes,” and the drowning man called out,
“T am the captain; save me; I cannot keep up any longer.” He was
dragged into the boat, and Semmes then said, “ For God’s sake, don’t
put me on board the ‘ Kearsarge,’ but put me on board your yacht.”
The coxswain promised to do this, and covered him up with a sail in
the bottom of the boat, and as soon as they arrived alongside of the
yacht Semmes was at once placed below, out of sight. The officer in
command of the “ Kearsarge’s” boats asked for Semmes, and was told
that he had been drowned. Semmes also reports that he was fired upon
five times by the “ Kearsarge” after he had surrendered, although they
were but four hundred yards from each other; but he adds that “ it is
charitable to suppose that a ship-of-war of a Christian nation could
not have done this intentionally.” This statement, like many others of
Semmes’s, is untrue.

Mr. Lancaster, the owner of the “ Deerhound,” in a letter to the
editor of the Daily News, states, in vindication of his conduct, and as
his warrant for interfering in the fight, that Captain Winslow called
out to him, “ For God’s sake, do what you can to save them.” It might
be a question without that warrant, whether he would have been justi-
fied in trying to rescue the crew of the “ Alabama.” He says he thinks
that a drowning man in the open sea cannot be regarded as an enemy
by any one, and is entitled to assistance from any one passing, and that
Captain Winslow did not request him to deliver up to him those he
had rescued ; if he had, he, Lancaster, would have refused the task, as
he would have considered it very dishonorable to lend his yacht for the
purpose of rescuing drowning men only to deliver them to their ene-
mies for imprisonment, ill treatment, and, perhaps, execution. In
answer to Captain Winslow’s reason for not pursuing or firing into
him,—that he, Winslow, could not believe that any one flying the flag
of the Royal Yacht Squadron could act so dishonorably,—Mr. Lancas-
ter says he was not then aware, nor is he now aware, that the men he
rescued are or ever had been Winslow’s prisoners, and that a far better
reason for Winslow’s want of action was that, after the affair of the
“Trent,” Winslow did not dare to. Mr. Lancaster also states that he
was not a consort of the “Alabama;” that nothing was received on
board the “ Deerhound” from her previous to the fight. He utterly

1889. THE SINKING OF THE “ALABAMA.” 469

fails to state, however, whether anything was delivered to the “ Ala-
bama” from the “ Deerhound.” He states that his yacht was at Cher-
bourg for his own pleasure, and that he went out to witness the fight at
the request of his family, who were on board. Mr. Lancaster sent the
following copy of his log:

“ Sunday, June 19, 9 A.M. Got up steam and proceeded out of
Cherbourg harbor.

“10.30 a.m. Observed the ‘Alabama’ steaming out of the harbor
towards the Federal steamer ‘ Kearsarge.’

“11.10. The‘ Alabama’ commenced firing with her starboard bat-
tery, the distance between the contending vessels being about one mile.
The ‘ Kearsarge’ immediately replied with her starboard guns.

12.30. Observed the ‘ Alabama’ to be disabled and in a sinking
state. Immediately made towards her, and on passing the ‘ Kearsarge’
was requested to assist in saving the ‘ Alabama’s’ crew.

“ At 12.50, when within a distance of two hundred yards, the ‘ Ala-
bama’ sunk. We then lowered our two boats, and, with the assistance
of the ‘ Alabama’s’ whale-boat and dinghy, succeeded in saving about
forty men, including Captain Semmes and thirteen officers. At 1 P.M.
we steered for Southampton. I may state before leaving the ‘ Kearsarge’
was apparently much disabled.”

The log of the “ Kearsarge” states that the officer of the deck saw
a three-masted vessel steaming out from Cherbourg, her movements
being somewhat mysterious, and, after remaining a short time, returned
to port. This steamer came out again from Cherbourg a few minutes in
advance of the “ Alabama.” This steamer was the yacht “ Deerhound.”

The honorable conduct of Mr. Lancaster in not giving up to the
“ Kearsarge” the men he had rescued from a watery grave is ques-
tioned, as the following fact shows; and I think he was anything but
humane, for, according to his own account, after picking up Semmes,
thirteen officers, and a few men, he starts, from fear of pursuit, at full
speed for the English coast, leaving the “apparently much-disabled
‘ Kearsarge’”—his own words—to save two-thirds of the crew of the
“ Alabama,” struggling in the water. In my opinion, he was on a par
with Captain Eyre, of the English steamer “ Bombay,” who, having
run into and sunk the United States steamer “Oneida,” on the night
of January 24, 1870, left one hundred and sixteen people, officers and
men, to drown in the icy waters of Yokohama Bay, without an attempt
at rescue. When questioned, upon his arrival at Yokohama, he said
that he did not know he had struck anything. The signals of dis-
tress from the “ Oneida” were heard in Yokohama, thirteen miles off.

There is good evidence that the “ Deerhound” was at Cherbourg
for the express purpose of rendering every possible assistance to the
“ Alabama.” The “ Deerhound” arrived the 17th, and between that
time and the night of the 18th boats were observed from the shore fre-

Voz. I. N. 8.—No. 5. 81

470 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

quently passing between her and the “ Alabama.” It is reported that
English gunners came over purposely to assist the “ Alabama” in the
fight. How did these men reach Cherbourg? Semmes’s preparations
were apparently finished on the 16th, but he remained behind the break-
water, to the surprise of his crew. The “ Deerhound” arrived, and the
preparations were rapidly completed. It is unfortunate that Mr. Lan-
caster did not furnish the Times with a copy of his log from the 12th
to the 19th of June inclusive. The record of the “ Deerhound” is sug-
gestive,—on the morning of that memorable Sunday she steams out
from Cherbourg; steams about, apparently without purpose; returns
to port; comes out ahead of the “ Alabama ;” is the solitary and close
spectator of the fight, while the “Couronne” has the delicacy to return
to port; and having picked up Semmes and a few men, starts at full
speed for Southampton. Can any one believe that this “ Deerhound,”
that acted in such a suspicious and dishonorable manner, was a
thoroughbred? I think not.

The above are facts relating to this action off Cherbourg. The
“ Alabama” went down riddled with shot, and as she sank beneath the
waves not a cheer arose from the victors. The order was given,
“ Silence, boys!” and in perfect silence the “ Alabama” plunged to her
last resting-place. The reports in the English papers in regard to the
fight, with few exceptions, speak in the highest terms of Semmes and
his officers. Little credit is given by any of them to the “ Kearsarge.”
The Daily Post says that, as far as known, not a relic of the “ Ala-
bama” is in possession of her successful rival. Semmes even dropped
his sword overboard when he found his ship sinking.

“ Unfortunately, it is not only discrepancies of statement that call
attention to this engagement. There are two facts undisputed and
patent to the world, which are susceptible of graver notice. There is
the fact that a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, flying the white
ensign of her majesty’s fleet, escaping with prisoners of war under shel-
ter of a neutral flag, in violation of that honor of a neutral to which
they had been confided. There is Captain Semmes boasting that he
had been fortunate enough to escape, after hauling down his flag, his
own account, to the shelter of the neutral flag; and congratulating his
officers and men ‘ that though they had lost their ship they had not lost
their honor.’ The friends of Captain Semmes and his cause should
lament that when he dropped his sword into the sea he did not send
his trumpet after it.”?

Thug, in a short, equally-matched fight, lasting but an hour, was
ended the career of the notorious rebel cruiser “ Alabama” or “ 290.”

C. W. RuscHENBERGER,
Lieutenant U.S.N.

1 Extract from the London Daily News.

THE NIGHT OF LINCOLN’S ASSASSINA-
TION.

[I read some little time ago in a newspaper the account of an interview with
a survivor—perhaps the last survivor—of President Lincoln’s body-guard, giving
some interesting details of the arrival at the White House of the news of the Presi-
dent’s assassination on the night of its occurrence. The only point in the old man’s
story to which I care now to recur is his statement that on hearing the news he
started at once for the house opposite Ford’s Theatre, on Tenth Street, to which
the President had been carried, and on getting there found a military guard posted
that refused him admittance. How that guard came to be there so promptly sur-
prised him, and, indeed, had surprised others who had occasion to take cognizance
of it. Had he gone to Secretary Seward’s, or Secretary Stanton’s, or any one of
numerous official residences, he would have found guards there likewise. In short,
though the fact smacks somewhat of locking the stable-door after the horse has been
stolen, it isa fact that within less than an hour after Booth’s fatal shot the residence
and person of every prominent official in Washington was under close military pro-
tection. Considering the hour of the occurrence, the remoteness of most of the
military barracks, and the temporary paralysis of practical thought and action nat-
ural to an event so shocking, this promptitude on the part of the military is remark-
able, and its cause worth explaining. The following narrative of my experiences
on that eventful night will disclose how this prompt action of the military came
about, and possibly contains other matter which the recent revival of interest in all

that relates to President Lincoln may make acceptable to the public.
G. A. W.]

THE 14th of April, 1865, found me a looker-on in Washington, where,
after a tour of special duty to which I had been assigned by the Sec-
retary of War, I was awaiting orders to join my command, then
stationed in the West. The time and place were both full of interest to
one who had the leisure to take in the scenes and incidents which were
passing, and on which it was necessary to dwell with something more
than momentary attention to enable one to realize that the epochal
struggle which had raged for more than four years was actually at an
end.

The night of the 13th had been given to celebrating the tinal vic-
tories. Amid the blaze of lights and the blare of instrumental music
an immense triumphal procession had wound its way with shouts and
pans beneath great arches spanning the breadth of Pennsylvania
Avenue, and, except in the breasts of sympathizers with the lost cause,
a feeling, not so much of exultation as of deep thankfulness, pervaded
the vast mass of people that filled the streets.

472 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

The morning of the 14th dawned on a community eagerly expect-
ant of new scenes of joy-making and pageantry. A holiday spirit
was abroad. Thoughts of business and “the cares that infest the day”
were relegated to a more convenient season, and while nobody had any
precise idea of what he was expected to do to help the general joy,
everybody was pretty well agreed to leave undone whatever was not
directly, or indirectly, festive in its character.

With this prevalent hilarity one scene which I witnessed offered
striking contrast. Passing down Fourteenth Street, on their way from
the provost-marshal’s office to the old capitol prison, there marched,
as prisoners of war, a motley column of over four hundred Confederate
field and company officers, together with some dozen or more general
officers, to whom was accorded the distinction of riding in an omnibus.
Among these latter were some of the most distinguished of the South-
ern leaders, several of them disabled by wounds which they had incurred
in a cause which, however we might regard it, had been to them as
holy as any that had ever rallied to its support ardent zeal and knightly
endeavor. It was a sorrowful sight. No man with the heart of a
man beating in his bosom could witness it without emotion. In their
old tarnished and torn uniforms they marched erect and proud, with
no semblance of bravado, and yet with no apparent sense of humilia-
tion.

On “F” Street, just east of the Ebbitt House, were quartered at
this time Generals Joshua T. Owen and De Witt C. Baxter, both of
Philadelphia. Here these two gallant warriors, having fought a good
fight, rested from their labors pending their relegation to the walks of
civil life, and here I dropped in on the evening of the 14th. With
Owen and Baxter I found, enjoying the hospitalities of the “ Saints’
Rest,” as the profane had dubbed their abode, my old friend and com-
rade of the Pennsylvania Reserves, General S. Duncan Oliphant.
Later in the evening the regimental band of the Eighth Veteran Re-
serve Corps appeared in front of the house and serenaded the party,
gathering at the same time a very considerable crowd of people, who
in due course called out General Owen, whose fame as an orator equaled
his renown as a soldier. What with his and other speeches and the
music the evening passed very enjoyably. After the band had left
and the crowd had dispersed, our party, which during the evening —
had considerably increased, broke up. Oliphant, Baxter, and I, at-
tracted by the sound of music, walked to the corner of Fourteenth
Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and stood there watching the march
past of a torchlight procession composed of employés of the Treas-
ury Department, who had been prevented by their duties from taking
part in the celebration the night before, and were now making up
for it by having one of their own. While thus occupied, a man
came running up the avenue, and addressing me, cried out, “ Have

1889. THE NIGHT OF LINCOLN’S ASSASSINATION. 473

you heard what has happened?” “No,” answered I. ‘What has
happened?” “The President has just been shot in Ford’s theatre.” -
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “can that be possible?” “ Yes,” said
the man, “TI saw him carried out; he wasn’t dead, but the doctors say
he can’t live.” Our impulse was to run down to Ford’s theatre, and
we started todo so. At this moment, however, the members of the
torchlight procession which was still filing by seemed to catch the
news, and the procession instantly broke up into groups of intensely-
excited men. They crowded ahead of us on the sidewalk so as to hin-
der our progress, and brought us, in fact, to a halt. As we were thus
checked, there flashed through my mind the scene I had witnessed in
the morning, of those four hundred and odd Confederate officers being
marched to the old capitol as prisoners of war. Might it not be that
by some treachery they had been released, or had escaped, and, heading
a preconcerted rising of Southern sympathizers, were making a last mad
effort, not to save, but to avenge the lost cause? And was not this
killing of the President but one act in a tragedy that was to include,
or perhaps had already included, all the heads of government? Of
course I do not mean to say that there, on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania
Avenue, in the midst of a surging ‘mass of men almost frenzied with
excitement, these thoughts formulated themselves just as I now set them
down, but incoherently they voiced themselves to my inner sense, and
led me to exclaim, “ Gentlemen, it strikes me that we, as military men,
instead of going down to Tenth Street to swell a crowd and be of no
use, had better get up the garrison of this city.” This proposition
receiving immediate assent, we dashed towards the middle of the ave-
nue, where just at that moment a solitary, battered old hack, drawn by
a wretched beast, and presided over (not driven) by a sleepy Jehu,
was wending its way to its place of rest. Plunging into it with
scant ceremony, we shouted to the now aroused hackman to drive to
General Augur’s head-quarters. Instantly catching our excitement,
though ignorant of its cause, our driver, now indeed a Jehu, with voice,
whip, and rein stimulated his ancient beast into a degree of activity
that doubtless recalled visions of his vanished youth.

Above Willard’s no word of the dreadful deed, which before an-
other sun should set would have been flashed round the world, had
apparently been carried. All was dark and quiet. At General
Augur’s head-quarters, which it took us only a very few minutes to
reach, we found nobody but an orderly. To him we communicated
the news, and told him to get word at once to the general and his staff.
Then on we hastened up the avenue to the head-quarters of General
George W. Gile, who commanded the troops that constituted the im-
mediate garrison of the city. Passing Nineteenth and “I” Streets,
where was quartered what was known as the Fire Brigade,—a force
of firemen and steam fire-engines organized for the protection of gov-

474 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

ernment property,—it occurred to Baxter, who was an old Philadel-
phia fireman, that incendiarism might form part of the devilish work
which seemed afoot. We stopped long enough to let him run in,
arouse the foreman, and direct him to fire up his engines and be in
readiness for instant action. Arrived at Gile’s head-quarters, we found
the same state of things as at Augur’s,—an orderly in charge. We
told him to light up the offices, and, as we knew that Gile lived a
little farther up the avenue, and near where two regiments of Veteran
Rezerve troops were quartered at Martindale Barracks, we resumed our
drive, and, halting at the door of Gile’s lodgings, Baxter ran up to his
room, while Oliphant and I rushed over to the barracks, he to alarm
the troops and I to arouse Major Dewitt, the commandant of the post.
I had hardly delivered one sonorous blow on Dewitt’s door with my
fist when from the barrack inclosure sounded forth on the still air of
the night that startling summons, the “ong roll” which never fails to
electrify the soldier, no matter how deep the slumber in which he is
wrapped. By the time I had awakened Dewitt and communicated
my tidings the soldiers were rushing out of their quarters and “falling
in,” stern, silent, and ready. Certainly not more than ten minutes
had elapsed since the first note of the long roll had sounded, and here,
where then was but empty space, now stood in two long lines a thon-
sand men. Such is the magic of military discipline.

General Gile having arrived, immediately began dispatching squads
under command of subaltern and non-commissioned officers to the resi-
dences of the ‘several Cabinet ministers and other prominent officials.
The remaining troops were ordered to be held in readiness, and, at
Gile’s invitation, Oliphant, Baxter, and I started with him to his
head-quarters. On our way a mounted orderly of General Augur met
us and conveyed to Gile orders to do the very things which had already
been done in the matter of stationing guards, etc.

At the head-quarters office there commenced arriving officers from
every part of the city, some to tell what they knew of the night’s
doings, and others eager to hear the minutest details of the direful
event. Every few minutes some man would come rushing in with the
announcement of a victim previously unheard of by the assembled
crowd, until the list came to include, besides the President, the Vice-
President, Secretary Seward, General Grant, and Secretary Stanton.
Being entirely assured of the truth as respected the President, we were
prepared to accept, and did accept, each fresh announcement as equally
well founded. The excitement mounted to a pitch more easy to be
imagined than described. Swords flashed from their scabbards and
were raised aloft as by a common and irresistible impulse, and from
throats hoarse with passion a great vow of vengeance went up to
heaven.

I remember particularly the coming of Colonel Theodore MacGowan

1889. THE NIGHT OF LINCOLN’S ASSASSINATION. 475

fresh from the theatre, and the first who gave us an accurate account
of just what had taken place there. MacGowan and a friend had gone
early to the theatre to secure two particular chairs in the upper row of ~
the dress-circle which they had discovered by previous experience to be
loose and movable ; the advantage being that when the house had filled
they could set these chairs back in the aisle and, tilting them against
* the wall, have more room, and enjoy besides the sitting posture which
is supposed to be especially dear to Americans. The President’s box
was the one at the end of the dress-circle on their side of the house,
and their position in the aisle impeded approach to it. MacGowan told
us that shortly before Booth himself appeared a man came along the
aisle towards the President’s box, and, seeing that he wished to pass, they
moved their chairs forward to let him get by; he went to the door of
the box, on the step of which sat the President’s messenger, and seemed
to hand him a card, with which the messenger entered the box. On
the reappearance of the latter the man returned to the front of the
house and disappeared. Not many minutes after Booth came along,
evidently bound for the President’s box. Again MacGowan and his
friend moved their chairs forward, so as to let Booth pass behind them.
Booth reached the box and entered. What took place there was hidden
from their view, but is now matter of history. The shot; Booth’s leap
to the stage, his spurred heel catching in the folds of the flag draped
beneath the box, causing the fracture of the small bone of the leg
which led subsequently to his capture; his brandishing aloft a dagger
and his exclamation, “ Sic semper tyrannis !” as he disappeared in the
wings on the opposite side, all these followed in quick succession, so quick
indeed that it was impossible for the startled spectators to take in and
fully realize exactly what had happened. Unquestionably Booth had
calculated on just this effect, and relied on it to secure the few moments
which were necessary for him to reach his horse, which stood ready
and waiting for him in the alley alongside of the theatre. And well
was it for the assassin’s temporary safety that he had not miscalculated
in this regard. There were probably a hundred men in the audi-
ence that night with pistols on their persons who in a single minute
more would have directed against the fleeing murderer a fatal fusilade.
MacGowan himself was a dead shot with the pistol,—could snuff a
candle at fifteen paces, and all that sort of thing. He had his revolver
with him, and, as he declared to us, could he have realized the situation
promptly enough, he could easily have put three bullets into Booth’s
body before he crossed the stage. Colonel MacGowan is probably. just
as happy now as if he had then and there done Booth to death, but at
the time it seemed an immense opportunity missed.

As the night wore on, one after another of the officers at Gile’s
head-quarters took their departure. Some time after midnight Gile
asked me if I wouldn’t get a mount and visit the guards which had been

476 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

established. I sent an orderly for a horse, and spent the remainder of
the night in the saddle, going from place to place where guards were
stationed and seeing that they were properly attentive to their duties.
About five o’clock in the morning I reached the house opposite Ford’s
theatre where the President lay, and the officer commanding the guard
proposed to me to goin. I at first demurred, thinking it would be an
intrusion, but after a moment’s reflection concluded that, all things
considered, I might venture on entering. The house, as I remember
it (for I have never seen it since), was a small two-story tenement,
with a flight of steps leading up to the front door, entering which you
found yourself in a narrow passage, with a stairway on the right, a
parlor to the left, and a bedroom at its extremity. This latter was the
room where the President lay. From the parlor, the door to which
was closed, could occasionally be heard low wailing sounds, proceeding,
as I supposed, from mourning members of Mr. Lincoln’s family.
General Augur sat on one of the lower stairs facing the front door. In
the room with the President were several members of the Cabinet and
Surgeon-General Barnes, the latter kneeling by the President’s bed-
side, apparently sopping with a towel the brains and blood which oozed
from the wound. The President lay with his head to the foot of the
bed, entirely unconscious and breathing stertorously. Every now and
then the sounds would cease, and for a moment or two it would seem
as if the end had come; then they would begin again, and the failing
flame of life would feebly flicker on. Twice while I stood in the door-
way of the room Secretary Stanton pressed by me to where General
Augur sat, and conversed with him briefly and excitedly.

As I left the house the new day was breaking. Riding to my quar-
ters, the events of the night passed in rapid review through my mind.
What a change a few hours had wrought! From a scene of rejoicing
the capital would in a brief space of time be filled with mourning. To
the remotest corners of the land would be flashed the dire intelligence
that the nation’s chief had been stricken down by the bullet of an
assassin, and hearts that had been elated with joyful anticipation of
peace and reunion and the re-establishment of fraternal amity would
be sickened with dread forebodings of evils yet to come. Depressed
and weary, I sought relief in sleep, feeling that . had passed through
the most memorable night of my life.

GrEorGE A. WoopwarpD,
Colonel U.S.A. (retired).

NEW GUINEA.
SOME UNSCIENTIFIC NOTES.

On the 4th of September last the sovereignty of England over New
Guinea was formally proclaimed. ‘ Another jewel has been set in the
British Crown,” another.infant,colony adopted, for which our political
prophets may, if it-please them, draw hopeful horoscopes. One thing
is certain, there is gold in New Guinea.

We in the “Opal,” while waiting orders to embark the High
Commissioner and assist in the ceremony, have cruised for some
three months among the islands that thickly dot the ocean north-
east of the Australian coast. We steamed away from Cookstown on
Monday, the 21st of May. The day was heavenly, the sea without a
ripple, and at night the stars were intensely brilliant, overhead the two
centaurs pointed to the beautiful Southern Cross, while far away above
the northern horizon the dear old Bear was doing sentry-go over Old
England.

We touched first at Santa Cruz, where about fifty canoes came off ;
the natives were a bit shy at first, but soon made friends, and a lively
trade began in bows and arrows and various curios, which were bar-
tered for pipes, tobacco, beads, etc., the filthy lucre of civilization being
unknown here. The natives of this group are lighter in color and
smaller than Fijians and Tongans. After the bright, handsome faces
of the Tongans and their graceful manners the natives of the New
Guinea groups seem terribly repulsive. Their faces wear a look of
treachery and low cunning, they suffer from frightful skin-diseases, and,
to add to the ugliness with which nature has so liberally endowed them,
they disfigure nose and ears with huge rings. If our fair ones could only
see the effect of ear-rings in extremis I am sure they would never wear
them again.

For their dress, it is @ la mode de Eden-before-the-fall. Here the
married ladies are distinguished by a bit of string tied around their
waists. On the mainland of New Guinea the fashion has progressed to
that of the post-fall period,—a skirt of leaves or hanging grass, of which
more presently. Here the men carry a kind of knapsack made of mat,
and stow the miscellaneous rubbish of their worldly goods in it. The

1 Reprinted from the London Naval and Military Magazine.

478 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

heat is awful, and just now everything has to be shut up on account of
the rain. There is one white man on the island, a Church of England
missionary, who has courage to face the fever that hides in the beautiful
and marvelously-luxuriant vegetation.

The canoes are the usual dug-out sort, with one outrigger; at the
island of Santa Anna we saw some very beautiful models with no out-
rigger. Three or four men can sit in them, having just room for their
legs. They have also catamarans of thin planks joined together.

At Santa Anna the natives are very friendly to Europeans ; they
have not been cannibals for years, though some of this group (Solomon
Islands) are among the worst in the South Seas. A labor-ship came in
while we were there ; the vessels are away about five months collecting
boys to work the sugar plantations in Fiji and Queensland, each of
whom must eventually be returned to his own island. The govern-
ment regulations are very strict, and sometimes, when there is competi-
tion, English ships are much handicapped by not being allowed to give
muskets to the families of the boys.

By the 5th of June we reached Florida Island. Here a mission-
ary is established, and we found a school-house and prayer-books in the
native language, also a comparatively clean village. The ladies here
wear short skirts, something like a ballet-dancer’s. When we appeared
they disappeared, looking with their flying skirts like so many ostriches
as they whisked into the bush. That wonderful bush! it is impossible
to describe it without using up all the superlatives in the language.
Imagine massive trees covered with ferns and parasites, each a perfect
garden in itself, graceful palms, tree-ferns, varied by crotons, coleuses,
Judas-trees, hibiscus, and, above all, orchids, in the shade of which
flash gorgeous parrots, lovely-plumaged pigeons, and the exquisite little
bird of paradise. The parrots scream, the pigeons boom heavily,
beetles everlastingly buzz, and the most beautiful butterflies imaginable
come sauntering along, not fluttering in a hurry like their cousins in
England. Naturally! it is much too hot to be ina hurry. The cli-
mate of your hottest conservatories is a feeble imitation of this. When
we go shooting we take natives to retrieve our game; it is wonderful
how they do it, for we hopelessly lose any fallen bird, and often when
we hear their boom all round us can hardly get a shot through the
immense thickness of the vegetation.

Man is tolerably vile. They are devil worshipers, and propi-
tiate the formidable evil, leaving the good to look after itself. In the
centre of the villages is always the Tabu house. Here chiefs are
buried and drums kept, no woman ever admitted. On the props of
the one here was an advertisement of Old Judge tobacco, of which
they seemed immensely proud. I wished for a good puff of Pears’s soap,
to stick up alongside. The natives’ own houses are fairly large, with
one aperture for door and window, three feet from the ground. A

1889. NEW GUINEA. 479

great many seem to live in each house, and at night stow away pretty
thick on mats on the floor.

Dinner Island is about a mile round and about a mile from the
mainland of New Guinea. A number of little islands here form
an excellent harbor, and a delicious fresh breeze blows constantly.
We shot here (I grieve to own) some small birds with a song almost
as liquid and sweet as the nightingale’s. A lively trade constantly
goes on in bows and arrows, feathers, etc., and in shells, which are
exquisitely beautiful, sometimes also in pearls. It is a lovely sight
to look down through the clear water at the coral, which is of
all shapes, sometimes like fine net-work, and of all colors. The fish,
which dart in and out, are as gorgeously colored as everything else.

We have had to go toa place called Pippinge Creek and demand
the skulls of two English thieves who took refuge here, and were
promptly eaten. The “Diamond” came last year, burnt the village,
and cut down the cocoanut-trees. The skulls had been kept as
trophies; they 'were brought off to us wrapped in a blue hand-
kerchief.

Our first view of the mainland of New Guinea was Port Moresby.
Here there is a station of the London Mission Society, a store, and the
head-quarters of the government. The native villages in these parts
are built on piles off the sea-shore, so that if attacked and hard pressed
by other tribes, they slip out of their back doors into their canoes. At
the end of the bay in which we anchor is the town of Granville, con-
sisting at present of about four or five houses,—a store kept by a
Scotchman, a bakery run by a Japanese, some government offices, our
coal store, and a couple of other houses. A mile or so down the bay is
another landing-place, leading to Government. House, then comes the
native village, then the Mission Station. There are two distinct tribes
living at Port Moresby,—the Motuans and the Koitapans. They keep
so absolutely apart that it is said even their children do not play to-
gether, though their houses are side by side. The Koitapans are the real
owners of the land, while the Motuans, a sea-faring race, are traders and
potters. Why, or whence, or when they came is unknown ; here they
live by a mutual agreement, the Koitapans saying to them, “ Yours are
the sea, the canoes, and the nets; ours are the land and the wallaby.
Give us fish for our flesh and pottery for our yams and bananas, that we
may live together in peace.”

These fishers have a peculiar custom. In the morning you see the
canoes go out, racing one another, skylarking, and chatting. But on
the return journey at night they are silent till they come to land, and
may not dispose of their fish on the way. If one were to board them
and attempt to trade they would probably jump out of the canoe and
swim ashore. They make yearly voyages to dispose of their pottery, and
in return bring back sago, the sago-palm being grown westward in large

480 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

quantities. For these trading expeditions they make their Jakatoi,
just as wood rafts are made for convenience of transit down the Rhine.

From three to five large dug-out canoes are placed side by side and
securely lashed together with stuff made from fibrous bark. Then
bulwarks are made from palm-leaves sewn together with sticks to
strengthen them, like wicker-work. In the centre is a sort of deck-
house, where the captain and officerssleep. The captain, being a sort of
sacred person, has his meals apart, as in our service. There are two
masts with mat-sails of very peculiar shape. The day before sailing they
hold a grand regatta and go singing and shouting about the harbor.
The crockery consists of wras, open pots for cooking, and hordus, for
carrying water. All the potter’s work is done by the ladies, who wear
the grass-skirt, and represent all other articles of dress by abundant
tattoo. The gentlemen look upon clothing as purely ornamental, and,
accordingly, they put on merely a quarter-inch tape, but are decorated
with plenty of brilliant paint and head-dresses and necklets of ex-
quisite feathers. For mourning they blacken themselves all over,
and in very deep affliction even the insides of their houses. The
women, and sometimes the men, also carry a net filled with babies,
bananas, shells, and all sorts of messes, bound on their foreheads and
hanging over their backs.

When the Papuan makes a dictionary he should define “ Euro-
pean” as “ man who gives tobacco.” Entreaties for kuku are his chief
conversation. Pipes are not used here, but a long tube of bamboo open
at one end, with a small hole in the side near the other end. The to-
bacco is rolled up in a leaf like a small cigarette, and held in the little
hole, while a small boy puts his mouth to the big end and exhausts the
air, filling the tube with smoke. It is then handed round, and each
takes a pull from the small hole till the tube is empty, when they
begin da capo.

We can fancy ourselves in Australia again at Port Moresby,—in
fact, the presence of that weary gum-tree and of the kangaroo pretty
well prove that the two were formerly one. But there are plenty of
crocodiles, which roar dismally in the pleasant coolness which here
refreshes us at night.

We have been out shooting and met a party of natives on the hunt.
They form into a circle, close in, and spear all the ground game ; or else
they inclose a tract with nets, then fire the grass, and so drive in the
kangaroo and wallaby. It is wonderful to see them slip through the
bush, which is here infested with a kind of palm fitly called “the law-
yer,” as its countless hooks, retracted like a cat’s claw, are terrible to
escape from. You free your sleeve only to find your legs caught and
your face torn, and finally have to back out again.

There are some Tongan teachers among the Mission workers about
this region ; their graceful movements in their flowing dresses—I am

1889. NEW GUINEA. 481

thinking of the ladies—are a refreshing contrast to the prevailing ugli-
ness.
To-day (4th of September) we have formally annexed New Guinea.

The natives looked on calmly ; they were not surprised, for this is the

fifth ceremony of the kind that has taken place. The first was at the

latter end of last century, and was not followed up; next, Captain

Moresby, in the “ Basilisk,” took possession and gave his name to the

place ; then the Queensland Government had a try, but this was repudiated

from home ; lastly, Captain Erskine, in November, 1884, proclaimed a

protectorate, which lasted to the present time, business being carried on

by a commissioner, deputy commissioner, and agents at various ports.

Altogether, a feeble and invertebrate system, unable to enforce law

when required without calling in the aid of men-of-war.

Our men marched up and formed line, shouldering arms. Dr.
MacGregor, the new Administrator, read the Proclamation and Letter
Patent. The Royal Standard was hoisted, our men presented arms, the
band played “God Save the Queen,” and the “Opal” fired a royal
salute of twenty-one guns. Our captain swore in the Administrator, a
feu de joie was fired, three cheers were given for the Queen, the Union
Jack run up as the Administrator’s flag and saluted by the “ Opal.”
That was all.

As our men marched off the natives attached to the Mission sang
“God Save the Queen” in their own tongue, melodiously enough. For

the rest, proceedings that did not include kuku all round were incom-
plete and unsatisfactory.

And we are off at daybreak, and can philosophize at leisure on our
new possession and its prospects, till we reach Australia and civiliza-
tion once again.

W. O. Story,
Lieutenant H.M.S. “ Opal.”

THE UNITED SERVICE.

OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS
WITH GENERAL GEORGE CROOK, 1867-68.

In the spring of 1867 I was relieved from duty with the Eighth
United States Cavalry,—then being organized,—and ordered to report
for duty with my own company and regiment, at Camp C. F. Smith,
Oregon; I was at the time stationed at Benicia Barracks, California,
and proceeded by boat to Sacramento, thence marching across the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, over the old stage-road, through Carson, Fort
Churchill, and McDermit, Nevada, to my own station, in Southern
Oregon.

Twenty-one years ago the Indian tribes were not concentrated, as
they are to-day, but were scattered over an immense territory, broken
up into small bands of from twenty to fifty, roaming at will, destroy-
ing or stealing stock, and murdering small parties of prospectors or
other travelers whenever found unprepared. Small military posts were
located at isolated places near stage-roads or mining-camps, or approaches
to them, for such protection as they could afford ; but they were usu-
ally composed of but one small company of cavalry or infantry, ren-
dering effective scouting almost impossible, for, to send out a sufficient
number of men to meet any emergency would be to reduce the strength
of the garrison to such a degree as to leave it entirely defenseless in case
of attack. All this is now changed, and military garrisons are large
enough to send out a strong command and retain enough men not only
to protect life and property at the post, but also to afford support to
those in the field should it be necessary.

From Lemhi, in Idaho, to Klawath, in Oregon, an almost unin-
terrupted tract of country, abounding in game, fish, and bunch-grass
feed for animals, lay at the mercy and control of those itinerant bands
of Pi-ute, Snake, Klawath, Modoc, and Pitt River Indians; their
weapons consisted chiefly of bows and arrows and old shot-guns ; occa-
sionally rifles of various patterns would be found among them, taken,
no doubt, from some of their victims, either teamsters or miners way-
laid in their long and solitary journey to the gold-fields in the moun- .
tains.

It was no easy task that General Crook had before him. Were it
possible for him to concentrate those scattered bands and with his troops

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 483

give them battle, the problem would soon be solved ; but for hundreds
of miles the country had to be thoroughly scouted to find—after, per-
haps, weeks of hard and tedious marching—but a small band of war-
riors, who would scatter to the four winds at the approach of troops.
It was only when they had every advantage in position and numbers
that they would show any disposition to fight, or when cornered, and
then they would fight to the death: every shot and every arrow was
sent to kill, their fire-arms usually being loaded with slugs, and their
steel- or flint-headed arrows poisoned ; the process of poisoning being
done by taking a deer’s or other animal’s liver and holding it on the end
of a long stick to a frenzied rattlesnake to bite, and thus impregnate
it with poison, or else leave it in the sun to become putrid, then rub the
arrow-head in it, and leave it to dry. A wound from one of those
would usually prove fatal; but if the arrow became exposed to moist-
ure, the poison would evaporate and become non-effective, and for this
reason the Indians always carried their arrows in quivers made from
the skin of fur animals, with the fur inside.

General Crook’s long experience and study of the Indian character
in Oregon prior to the War of the Rebellion placed him par excellence
the man to successfully cope with the settlement of the Indian ques-
tion in this portion of the Pacific States and Territories, and the confi-
dence of the authorities at Washington and of the people of the Pacific
coast was fully justified by the results. The soldiers under his command
had just passed through a four years’ war and were young, hardy fel-
lows, full of fight and capable of enduring any amount of fatigue and
hardship ; indeed, had it not been so, the successful termination of this
particular war in 1868 could not have been accomplished, leaving, as it
did, thousands of acres of fertile land to be taken advantage of by the
thrifty settler and enterprising stock-raiser. Railroads, towns, vil-
lages, and productive farms now occupy the sites of Indian “ wickee-
ups” and battle-grounds in this beautiful garden of the Pacific coast.

The troops composing the expedition in preparation for the cam-
paign against these Indians consisted of Companies “ F,” “H,” and
“M,” First Cavalry, and a detachment of Company “ D,” Twenty-
third Infantry, mounted.

On the 22d of July the command left Camp C. F. Smith for
Camp Warner, distant about one hundred miles due west. On this
march we crossed Stein’s Mountain and passed many peculiar forma-
tions of rocks and earth. “Skull Creek Canyon,” a narrow pass in
the mountains, is lined on either side with basalt rock resembling
church-spires and the long, narrow, arched windows of European
cathedrals, many of them being almost as perfect as if done by the
skillful hand of the architect. Thirty miles west, in the vicinity of
“ Beattie’s Butte,” we passed a perfect amphitheatre of earth covering a
space of about two acres, the angles being surmounted by earth-towers

484 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

of fifty or sixty feet in height, the surrounding walls being ten to
twelve feet thick and partially (and apparently) in ruins ; to stand about
half a mile from it the effect and delusion were perfect. Yet it was
evidently but the work of volcanic action.

We remained at Camp Warner a few days, waiting the arrival of
a company of “ Warm Spring” Indians from the Dalles, who were to
act as scouts and trailers during the expedition. So daring were the
hostile Indians, that, a few days before we reached “ Warner,” a party
of them had killed a soldier of the Twenty-third Infantry and wounded
another not more than two hundred yards from the post. The garrison
consisted of two companies of the Twenty-third Infantry.

Public animals and cattle had to be strongly guarded by armed men,
and then only within sight of the post; and, even with all this precau-
tion, the Indians would sometimes attack the herd and succeed in stam-
peding some of them. On one or two occasions they crawled up to
the stockade corral at night and killed some of the animals with arrows ;
at another time they stampeded the herd half a mile from camp and got
away with thirteen government mules. There was no cavalry at the
post to follow them, and they got off with their plunder. After the
arrival of our Indian allies we took up the line of march for the
Goose Lake country, which to-day is dotted with towns and productive
farms, but at that time was the home of the hostile Indians.

Passing through the Goose Lake Valley we again got into the moun-
tains, making occasional halts for one or two days, to graze our animals
and to give our Indians an opportunity of scouting the country ahead
of us for “Indian signs.” Some days our march would take us up the
rugged mountain-side away above the snow-line, giving us an excellent
view of the surrounding country for many miles in every direction.
Our guide, on one of those occasions, remarked that “a fellow couldn’t
very well get lost in such a country, there were so many permanent
peaks about,”—meaning, of course, prominent points. The country
was rich in its numbers of warm, sheltered valleys, with grass in abun-
dance, game plentiful, and clear mountain-streams abounding in trout,
—the regular, orthodox, speckled, solid-fleshed, gamy fellows that make
the angler’s heart rejoice.

Scarcely a day passed that did not see General Crook’s mess well
supplied in this line. There is no better fly-fisher in the country than
General Crook ; and with his rifle he is equally expert, as I can attest
from witnessing his unerring aim at deer and antelope, as well as In-
dians. We continued our search for “Lo, the poor Indian,” up and
down mountain-ranges, steep and rugged as nature could have made
them, with now and again a few miles completely blocked by fallen
timber lying in every conceivable direction. Slowly we would make
our way over and through such obstructions, leading our horses. Until
the 13th of September we had not, so far, encountered any “hostiles,”

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 485

yet the general was certain that several small bands were concentrated
somewhere in some secluded spot in the mountains, fishing, hunting, .
and gambling, as was their usual custom at this season of the year.
The general therefore concluded to divide the command, and send one
party north and take the other with him in a southerly direction. So
Companies “ F” and “ M,” and a party of scouts, all under command of
Captain D. Perry, were ordered north, and Companies “ H” (mine)
and “D,” Twenty-third Infantry, with Archie MacIntosh’s Warm
Spring scouts, remained with the general for work southward.

We had constant rains and snow for several days after our party
divided, but we continued our work, looking for our “lost Indians.”
We crossed the boundary-line into California on the 22d, and Indian
signs began to get plentiful and interesting. While in camp that
night we noticed two or three fires west of us, and three parties of
scouts were sent out to locate them, their instructions being to get as
near as possible unobserved, get an approximate idea of their numbers
and situation, then return cautiously and report, the general’s plan
being to make a night march on them and attack at daybreak.

Our guide—Wilson—went with one party of our Indians, and
MacIntosh with another. Wilson came upon a large party early the
next morning, situated beneath a small bluff overlooking a large open
plain,—a magnificent place for an attack ; but, in direct disobedience to
his orders, he fired on the Indians and then ran for his life, instead of
getting away unobserved and returning to camp to report, when the
whole command would have been fresh for a general attack. This
piece of stupidity of Wilson’s gave the Indians the alarm at once, and
signal-fires were visible in every direction, the whole country was
ablaze, and our other scouts reported Indian runners everywhere. They
waylaid and killed two or three of them. The general was terribly
annoyed and disgusted with the guide, whom he immediately dis-
charged, and some of the men of my company were so incensed at his
perfidy that they actually got a lariat and had him under a tree ready
to swing until Lieutenant Eskridge, Twenty-third Infantry (the quar-
termaster), discovered them in time to save the fellow’s life. I think
sometimes it would have been but meted justice to have let the rope
serve its work then, for a few days afterwards many valuable lives
were lost by his disobedience and insubordination. The next two or
three days was anticipation and excitement ; Indian signs were plenti-
ful. Now and then one or two bucks would be seen on the side of
some mountain and then disappear in the timber ; they were evidently
watching our movements, and did not propose to be caught napping.

On the morning of the 26th of September we moved down the
mountain-side into the Pitt River Valley, and had just reached the flat
country when our chief of scouts (MacIntosh) rode up and reported a
large band of warriors intrenched in rocks and caves above us and

Vou. I. N. 8,—No. 6. 82

486 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

wanting to fight. I was ordered to dismount my company and move
up from the south side, while Lieutenant Madigan, my second lieu-
tenant, who was in command of the mounted infantry, was directed to
ascend from the north: the east side was the valley, with our lead-
horses and guard, and the pack-train; and the west was protected by a
_ perpendicular bluff about five hundred feet high. We commenced
climbing up the steep mountain-side, over rocks and huge boulders,
down through a deep ravine, and up again through rocks and juniper-
trees, when the Indians opened a heavy fire upon us. We made quick
work up that steep ascent, driving the Indians before us, until we
reached a rocky plateau about six hundred feet above the valley, and
there found the Indians in force. They were in a natural fortification,
strengthened by artificial means, with loop-holes and embrasures. There
was a main fort, of a basin-like formation, with a balcony nearly all
round it, and above this a wall of rock about eight or nine feet in
height, with a rocky gulch about forty feet deep completely surround-
ing the whole, the width of the gulch—about twenty-five feet—being
the only space distant between us and the Indians; but they were
behind their stone wall, while we were more or less exposed. Our men,
however, sought shelter behind rocks and boulders. The firing was
lively from both sides. Several other strong forts were near the main one,
with caves connecting them, so that the Indians could pass from one to
the other in perfect security. Some of the Indians posted themselves
at the entrances to these subterranean passages, and, lying flat on their
stomachs, they would pick off our men, while we could not discern
where the shots came from, owing to the dark background and the
Indians being about the same color as the rocks surrounding them.
Before our men had sought shelter behind rocks, First Sergeant Albert
Brachett and Private Lyon were killed and Lieutenant Madigan and half
a dozen men were wounded. The afternoon was consumed in forming
our line so as to completely surround the position held by the Indians,
movements being made by the men on all-fours, or crawling to the
position desired, for at twenty paces distance a man exposing himself
was bound to be hit. The bodies of the two men who were killed
could not be removed until after dark, as they lay in a position fully
exposed to the Indian fire.

Soon after sundown one-half of the command were sent down to
the camp, in the valley, to get something to eat. We had not had a
mouthful since five o’clock in the morning, and our attack on the
Indians commenced about noon. After all had supper and our
wounded were attended to and the dead removed, we again took up
our position around the forts. The night was clear and cold. All
night long the Indian “ medicine-man” kept up a monotonous and
loud “talk,” evidently giving counsel and courage to his people. An
occasional shot would relieve the monotony of this doleful cry. Just

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 487

about sundown I climbed up on a high rock near me, to try and get a
view of the Indian fort. I was seen, and in an instant arrows flew
thick and fast around me from both flanks and front, but none hit.
About midnight Lieutenant Eskridge came to me and requested me to
go round to where Lieutenant Madigan was and cheer him up. He said
he had just left him, very despondent. I went around and gave him a
drink of whisky, as his whole frame was shaking and shivering. I
did and said all I could to cheer him up; but he evidently had a
premonition of death, and nothing I could say or do had any effect
whatever. The poor fellow was killed in the attack next morning. A
brilliant officer and a brave man was Lieutenant John Madigan.
About an hour before daylight next morning General Crook
directed me to draw in my line, form my men, and storm the works.
This (the concentration) was done, with the loss of two or three
wounded. So near had they closed in on the Indians during the night
that when they wanted to get back they had to pass over an exposed
position, and thus became a target for the ever-watchful Indian.
Everything being ready, the men were directed to take off their
overcoats, as hard climbing was before us. Lieutenant Madigan neglected
to do this. I took the right, with twenty-two men, with Lieutenant
Madigan and eighteen men on my left. The rest of our available men
were either attending the wounded of the day before or were guarding
our pack-train, which had been attacked in the valley during the night
by Indians on the outside. At the command, “ Forward,” we went
with a rush down into the gulch surrounding the main fort. We were
met by a perfect hail-storm of arrows as we rose in full view of the
Indians, but not a man was touched. We were down at the bottom of
the gulch in an instant, where we were secure, as a shot, to be effective,
must be fired from a perpendicular height above, and to do this the
Indians would have had to come outside of their works and be exposed
to our fire. Our forty or fifty feet of climbing now commenced. The
boulders were large, too large for a man to climb up unaided, so that
two or three men would be pushed up and they, in turn, would drag up
their comrades. Up, up we went this way until we reached the balcony
mentioned, when we were on the same level with the Indians, with a
wall of loose rock eight or nine feet high between us. “ Make a breach”
was the order given, and “let no man stand still for a moment, but
keep moving.” While these orders were being given, Sergeant Meara,
looking through one of the loop-holes, shouted, “‘ Here they are, boys !”
and in an instant he was shot through the head. The gun could not
have been more than six or seven inches from him at the time, as his
face was badly burned with powder. A few moments after Meara’s
death Private Sawyer was killed in a similar manner, his head and face
being badly powder-burned. Private Shay, another old soldier and an
excellent fighter, received a shot in the wrist, his carbine-stock was

488 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

broken, and the shock hurled him down that steep rocky wall forty feet
below. It was not long before he was back with his comrades, swearing
like a trooper—that he was. In the mean time a breach was made in
the wall of rocks and our men swarmed into the fort, using revolvers
and clubbed carbines on the skedaddling Indians. Some got down
through their underground passage, others jumped over the wall on
the opposite side to us, while others remained in the fort, past the
power of doing any more deviltry. It was while the Chief Sa-hei-ta
was jumping over the wall like a jack-rabbit that General Crook, with
his unerring “Spencer,” hit him square in the spine, and Mr. Indian
fell headlong down the gulch and his body buried itself between two
large boulders. In the mean time Lieutenant Madigan’s men moved
forward when the order was given, and, on reaching the edge of the
gulch, found the banks too steep and ran round to our position and
followed us. Lieutenant Madigan, with his overcoat on, stood still for
a few moments, to give some directions, or to examine the position,
when he became a target for the Indians, and was shot through the
head, the wound and the place where he was standing being identical
with that of Private Lyon, who was killed the day before. After we
gained possession of the fort heavy firing from the smaller forts and
from caves and holes continued for several hours, our men returning
the fire when an opportunity presented itself.

About nine o’clock in the morning one of the infantrymen was on
my left, watching through a small opening in the rocks. A small sprig
or weed somewhat obstructed his view, and he was about to remove it,
when one of the men cautioned him not to do it; but he replied that
“it wouldn’t make any difference,” and he broke it off. An instant
after a ball passed clean through his head above his ear. The shot
came through that hole, for there was no other place that it could
possibly have come. Strange to say, this man lived unconscious for
two or three weeks. He was carried to Camp Warner on a double
travoise across a range of mountains,—a distance of one hundred and
fifty miles.

About 11 A.M. a small detachment was left in charge of the fort
and skirmish-line, and the remainder were ordered down to camp, for
breakfast. We had not been down but a few minutes when a messen-
ger came down and reported that the Indians had attacked the fort and
recaptured it. I hurried back, and found that they had attacked the
fort and had driven our men out, but that other men on the line rallied
to their support and had in turn again driven the Indians back ; but, a
short time after, the Indians moved by both flanks through the under-
ground passages and, taking position at the entrances to those caves,
had command of the approaches to the fort, while our men had com-
mand of the fort itself. Our dead lay where they had fallen. We
therefore had to keep men in such a position as to command their

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 489

bodies, so as to prevent the approach of Indians for scalping or muti-
lating villainy.

All the afternoon of the 27th a desultory firing was indulged in on
both sides. We could not reach the Indians in their retreat in the
caves, as two or three men could successfully resist any number, as but
one man could approach any of the numerous entrances at a time.
Their retreat was a perfect honeycomb, and they would not come out
to fight. After supper the line was again formed—as we supposed—
completely around the position held by the Indians, The medicine-
man’s talk was not heard this second night; he had been killed in the
attack in the morning.

From 8 to 10 o’clock P.M. the arrows flew thick and fast around
us, but doing no injury. Then there was a lull for an hour. We were
expecting a night-attack from the redskins, with a view of breaking
through our lines and escaping. Our herd and pack-train were being
annoyed by straggling Indians in the valley, hoping that we would reduce
our force on the hill to protect our train ; but we had armed all our pack-
ers with the arms of the dead and wounded, and made them stand guard
that night. I went round the line, and ‘cautioned every man to be alert
in case the Indians should try and escape. About midnight another
volley of arrows came from the Indians. They fired them in the air,
hoping they would drop down on us, as we were quite close to them ;
but the angle of elevation was not enough, and the arrows buried
themselves in the ground thirty or forty feet in rear of us. After about
half an hour of this sort of amusement everything was quiet again, and
again we looked for an effort by the Indians to escape. But daylight
came and we breathed easier. Shortly after we discovered that the
Indians had actually escaped during the night; but how? We did
not know until MacIntosh and some of his scouts discovered their trail
and some broken guns near a cave about seventy-five yards in rear of
our line. They had passed through the subterranean passages under
our feet and emerged to the open air in rear of our position soon after
midnight, and softly stole away in the dark.

A sergeant in charge of a squad captured a wounded squaw, who,
when questioned by our chief of scouts, told so many lies that, finally,
a rope was put around her neck and threats to hang her made if she
did not speak the truth. Finally she stated that theré were one hun-
dred warriors in the fight, sixteen of whom were killed and nine
wounded, the rest escaping during the night. Some women and chil-
dren and wounded men were yet in the various underground passage- .
ways, where they could not be got at, nor would they come out.

Some of the men undertook to examine and explore some of the
caves. Dead Indians were found in several of them. Private Carey, of
Company “ H,” had been down into one of those places and had actually
taken some of their scalps. He was about vo enter another large cave

490 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

when he was shot dead by a wounded Indian inside. His body fell to
the bottom of the cave, and it took about two hours to recover it.

I sent down to camp and directed the blacksmith to get a long pole
and work a horseshoe into a drag-hook, attach it to the pole, and send
it up. We then got a lariat and tied it to the end of the pole. One
man got as near the entrance to the cave as safety would permit, so as
to handle the pole and work the hook into Carey’s waist-belt, the men
on the rocks above holding on to the lariat, ready to haul up the body
when secured by the hook; and thus we got poor Carey’s body out of
that hole for decent burial.

An examination of the position held by the Indians proved it to be
much more formidable than we anticipated. There were four im-
mensely strong natural forts, of a circular formation, like extinct craters,
further strengthened by piling up large rocks all round, and all com-
_ municating with each other ; in addition to which were a number of

smaller detached forts capable of holding half a dozen men; besides
these were the underground passages, the entrances to which were all
protected by rocks. I quote from my diary of September 28, 1867 :
“ Around the large fort, north and west, was a continuation of the deep
gulch, where it was impossible to climb ; on the south of it were several
smaller forts and breastworks. These were nearly on the same level
where the troops were formed for the attack on the morning of the
- 27th, and where Lieutenant Madigan was killed and seven men of
Company “ D,” Twenty-third Infantry, wounded.” . . . “ But to get
to this ground several deep ravines and chasms had to be crossed,—
dangerous to jump, even when not confronted by the enemy.”

Such is a brief idea or outline of the character of the “ Infer-
nal Caverns,” Pitt River, California, the official title by which it is
recognized at the War Department, Washington.

On the afternoon of the 28th we buried our dead, obliterating all
traces of the graves, so that the Indians could not find the bodies to
mutilate them. Lieutenant Madigan’s body was carried one day’s
march and was buried at midnight near the forks of Pitt River, his
grave also being so obliterated as to avoid detection.

We prepared double and single travoises for our wounded before
marching on our return to our military station. The double travoise
was made by getting two long poles or saplings and strapping them to
the apparajoes-on two pack-mules, tandem fashion, with a space
between the mules for the man, then canvas and blankets were made
fast to the poles, and it at once became a stretcher on mules, where a
wounded man could lie quite comfortably, and much easier than in an
ambulance. Thesingle travoise has but one mule, the ends of the poles
being on the ground. On two or three mules we had rigged easy-chairs,
by lashing short poles on each side of the apparajoes, slanting back-
ward, and then padding up with grass and blankets the top and sides of

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 491

the apparajoes until quite a comfortable seat was made. In this way
we got all our wounded along without any unnecessary suffering,
although it took seven days’ fair marching with wounded men to return —
across the mountains to Camp Warner. Two of our wounded died
some time after, one of them being a packer who was wounded in the
thigh, and whom the doctor said really died more from fretting than
from the character of the wound, which he did not consider dangerous.

This particular expedition was now finished and preparations were
immediately made for another in the Stein’s Mountain country, which
occurred during the winter months.

THE WINTER CAMPAIGN.

After the return of the troops from the campaign against the hos-
tile Indians in the Goose Lake country, and the three days’ fight at the
“Infernal Caverns,” Pitt River, California, active preparations were
commenced to carry on a winter campaign against bands of the Pi-utes,
whose winter haunts lay in secluded and sheltered valleys of the Stein’s
Mountain country, distant from our post about one hundred miles
north-east. It was here where the Indians would cache their winter
supply of dried fish, venison, and cammas, the various small bands
uniting as soon as snow commenced to fall, and pass the winter months
in gambling, etc., unless disturbed by some of Uncle Sam’s soldier
boys.

During the days of the volunteer troops, 186166, very little
winter campaigning was indulged in in this particular section of
country, and the Indians did not anticipate any variation from this
time-honored custom,—they did not know anything about the status of
the troops then occupying the various military posts on the frontier.
Volunteers or regulars were alike to them,—they were their deadly
enemies in either case, and the presence of a blue-coat meant fight.
General Crook understood the situation thoroughly ; his purpose was to
attack them in their winter homes, kill the bucks, capture their women,
and destroy their supply of provisions, and thus so cripple them that
they would be glad to surrender and beg for peace. But much had to
be done before a winter campaign could be undertaken. Our cavalry
_ horses and pack-mules were sadly run down, after the severity of the
four months’ campaign just finished. The blacksmith was kept busy
from early morning until sundown. We had lost many horses from
sickness and exhaustion in the fall months. Others had to be supplied
and drilled to replace them, and recruits recently joined had to be
drilled ready for field-service. Our supply of forage was very limited.
We had enough grain on hand to feed three or four pounds a day to
the animals, and moldy hay enough to last two or three months, so that
the recuperation of the animals was very slow. The men fared but little

492 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

better. Old Camp Warner was abandoned, and the troops occupying
it moved to and established the new post, about forty-five miles west of
the old one and situated at the base of Mount Crook,—altitude about
five thousand feet above sea-level.

The subsistence department was not in those days as well supplied
as it is now. A little tea, white sugar, and Java coffee would some-
times be on hand for sale to officers. The other supplies were made up
of the ordinary rations of flour, pork, Rio coffee, sugar, salt, ete. ;
canned goods were in the prospective only. But even the ordinary
ration allowance was down to the lowest ebb, and many times it was
but repeating the old story of the war days when cavalry were ordered
out,—.e., three days’ rations to last five,—except that in the latter case
we could always make up for the other two by foraging, while in the
former there was nothing to forage, the nearest habitation being proba-
bly two or three hundred miles distant. We had a few tough old
steers, called by courtesy beef-cattle, with their ribs and hip-bones
prominently sticking out, their hides laying close down to their skele-
ton carcass. To kill them would be an act of humanity ; to eat them
meant a funeral at the post. Several attempts were made to secure
assistance from the supplies at Camps McGarvy, Nevada; Bidwell,
California ; and Harney, Oregon, with some trifling success. On one
or two occasions the party sent out to Bidwell or McGarvy had to
return on account of deep snow, some of the men being badly frozen
on the trip, the snow on the parade-ground at Warner being quite three
feet deep, and the thermometer on several occasions registering 18° to
20° below zero. When it is understood that'there was not a building
at the post, some conception may be had of what military life on the
frontier meant in those days. Officers and men alike were under can-
vas, officers’ and soldiers’ wives and children having to suffer with the
rest, not only in the matter of shelter, but also of food. Even the
luxury of a little milk for young children was not obtainable at any
price,—there was no place where it could be purchased, and no ani-
mals at the post to supply it. Yet I heard no complaints. It was an
illustration of heroism on the part of women unsurpassed since the
days of the Revolution. On the part of the troops it was patient en-
durance and discipline worthy of any age.

The troops composing the garrison consisted of Company “ H,”
First Cavalry, and Companies “ B,” “ D,” and “I,” Twenty-third In-
fantry, General Crook and staff with head-quarters, Twenty-third United
States Infantry and the head-quarters, District of the Lakes.

Several scouts were made to Warner and Alert lakes in November
and December, without any results. Our Warm Spring Indians, who
were enlisted for four moons in the fall campaign, had been discharged
and sent home. It was therefore necessary to secure friendly Indians
from some source for trailing and scouting during the winter months.

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 493

The general decided to send to Fort Boisé, Idaho, and try and secure
twenty-five or thirty from the reservation there.

On the 17th of December, 1867, Lieutenant O. W. Pollock,
Twenty-third United States Infantry, and myself, with a small escort,
started from Warner for Fort Boisé, via Camp Harney, with letters to
the Governor of Idaho Territory (Dr. Ballard) and others, soliciting
their assistance in securing the services of reservation Indians for four
or five months (the Indians enlisted for lunar months only ; they
would bargain for so many “ moons”). We had plenty of snow during
the trip, but so far it was soft in the valleys and did not impede our
travel very much. We reached Boisé on the 30th of December, and
immediately commenced negotiating for Indian volunteers. They were
very reluctant to leave their warm and comfortable dwellings for hard
work and exposure in the mountains ; but the prospect of a little money
in the end overcame their objections, and we secured twenty-three for
four moons, and commenced our return journey on the 7th of January,
1868.

During our week’s delay at Boisé much snow had fallen in the
mountains and the weather was exceedingly cold. When we arrived
at the ferry on the Snake River, forty-five miles from Boisé, we found
the boat tied up and frozen in solid. The ice was about sixteen inches
thick on the river, which at the crossing is about three hundred yards
wide, and for one hundred yards from the banks on either side it was
solid, the rapidly-running water in the centre being full of floating ice,
some of the immense cakes being seventy-five or eighty feet across.
Sometimes several large cakes, piled one on top of another, would pass
swiftly along, crushing and destroying anything that obstructed their
course. It was a problem difficult to solve, how we were to get to the
other side. At one time we concluded to return to Boisé and await the
spring opening ; yet such a course would be, we thought, cowardly, and
would frustrate all of General Crook’s plans and prolong the Indian
war another year. We quickly abandoned that idea, and then thought
of trying the road by way of Silver City and Camp C. F. Smith; but
to reach Silver City would entail encountering as much snow as we
would have to pass through on the direct road we were on, if we could
only cross the river, as Silver City is seven thousand feet above sea-
level. We made several excursions up and down the river, hoping to
find some place where the ice was jammed and frozen solid from bank to
bank, so that we could cross on the ice; but at no point was it com-
dheaaley frozen over,—a gap of several yards would exist where we
thought we had found solid ice. If we had no animals to cross we
could ourselves have crossed in a small boat, but we had thirty-one
horses and thirty pack-mules in the outfit.

We tried every possible way to get the ferryman to cut the boat out
from the ice and make the effort to cross, but to no purpose. He

494 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

declared that the immense cakes of floating ice in midstream would
crush the boat, snap the cable, and send everybody to eternity. Fi-
nally we decided to take control of the ferry business ourselves, as a
military necessity. The old man would not aid us in any way, either
by advice or otherwise; but his hired man,—Smith,—under promise
of good compensation, agreed to lend a hand. So, after three days’
delay, we made a beginning on the fourth day. We procured a long
ice-saw and commenced to cut a channel from the water’s edge to where
the boat was tied up. We got the channel cut by dark on the first
day, but half of the next day was consumed in cutting away the fresh
ice formed during the night and scraping the mush-ice from around the
bottom of the boat. In the afternoon we put a few horses and mules
on board, with eight or ten Indians and some provisions, and started
our load through the channel. All went well until we got into the
stream, and then the danger confronted us. We had armed half a dozen
Indians with long poles, to push aside the floating cakes of ice as they
would come along at a seven-miles-an-hour speed. Now and again the
frail boat was struck by those massive solid ice-floes. Every eye was
on the wire cable that held the boat to her place. Every exertion was
made by the Indians to keep off the ice ; but the great cakes came thick
and fast, and when one would strike us the boat would curve down
stream, the wire and rope lines giving with every blow, and then a sud-
den jerk back to their places, to be again put to the test by another
blow. With the frost in the wire and every rope connecting the boat
with the cable covered with ice, it was wonderful that one or the other
did not snap. Had such an accident occurred the boat weuld have
instantly capsized, and men and horses would have perished. But we
finally reached the solid ice on the other side, and made fast to stakes
driven in the ice. We disembarked our load and camped on the bank
of the river,

The next morning we had again to get rid of the ice that accumu-
lated around the boat during the night, and with our poles working at
the bow we recrossed to the edge of the ice on the other side, as our
‘canal was again frozen over. We got one small load over in the fore-
noon and one in the afternoon, watching carefully the floating ice. The
loads had necessarily to be small, as a crush with an ordinary load on
would have been too much for the cable. The day following we made two
more trips,—one in the forenoon and one in the afternoon,—completing
the job. We were very much elated at our success, after our seven days’
delay at the ferry. Not the slightest accident occurred to man, horse,
or provisions, and we camped that night with light hearts, little dream-
ing of the snow-banks ahead of us. Next morning we started bright and
early towards the Blue Mountains, where we expected to find plenty of
snow. The second day out from the river we commenced to ascend the
mountain-ranges, and found the snow five feet deep by actual measure-

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 495

ment. Of course we had to lead our animals, or, more correctly
speaking, the men would take the lead, single file, and break trail for
horses and pack-train, the man leading battling with the virgin snow
for a few yards, when he would drop out and take the rear, and the
next man take it up. By this means the passage of thirty men over the
snow would make a fair trail for the horses and the pack-train in the
rear of all. Sometimes we would make a march of seven or eight
miles, and at other times not more than four,—it depended entirely on
whether our route took us over the back-bone of a ridge, where the
snow was blown off, or whether we were marching in the timber, where
no drifts occurred. We camped each night in the timber, so as to get
shelter as well as fire-wood. Our animals suffered severely, as we had
but little grain,—about three pounds per day,—and, of course, no hay
or grass. The trees would be completely stripped of bark and small
branches every morning wherever our horses were tied. Two or three
times we lost our way in a blinding snow-storm, and had to camp each
time. Our animals had nothing but snow, in place of water, for several
days, and we had to melt it down in our camp-kettles to get water to
drink or to make coffee. On one of our marches we did not make
more than a quarter of a mile; at night, where we went into camp, one
could almost throw a stone to the place where we left in the morning.
Soon after leaving camp we undertook to cross a ravine, which we
’ thought was not deep, as the snow was on a level with us; but we
found twenty or twenty-five feet of snow there, and it took us nearly
all day to break a trail and get our animals across.

We reached Camp Harney on the 24th of January, in a violent snow-
storm. Our friends at the post had about given us up, some thinking
that we could not get out of the Boisé Valley, while others thought we
had perished in the mountains,

The distance from Boisé to Camp Harney by the route traveled was
about two hundred and ten miles, and we had yet one hundred and forty
miles of heavy snow between us and our destination,—Camp Warner.
We therefore laid over at Harney for a couple of days, to rest ourselves
and our animals, and then bid adieu to our hospitable friends at
Harney. We reached Warner on the evening of the Ist of February,
where we were joyfully received by the entire garrison, but more
especially by the members of our own family. They also had about
abandoned any hopes of seeing us, supposing that we had perished in
the mountains. However, everything reached camp all right, not an
animal lost or the occurrence of any accident worth mentioning, although
for forty-eight hours before reaching Harney we had neither provisions
nor forage. We were notified that a week’s rest would be granted, and
then be ready to start on a scout towards Stein’s Mountain.

When we reached the Nealheur River, forty-five or fifty miles from
Harney, we came across a train of wagons that had been caught in the

496 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

snow, and had to remain in camp there until the following June, when the
roads became passable. Some of the teamsters had tried to reach the post
on horseback, but one of their number had his feet badly frozen in the
attempt, and they were compelled to return. We found the man who
had been frozen in a bad plight: one of his feet had swelled to an enor-
mous size and then burst. The flesh appeared to be dropping off in
flakes as large as an egg. The poor fellow had nothing but a little
coal-oil to dress it with and a lot of old rags supplied by his comrades.
We had him fixed up as well as possible and took him with us to the
post, where he was sent to the hospital for treatment. He remained in
the hospital about four months, receiving every attention from the sur-
geon,—who saved both his feet,—and then the ungrateful fellow left
camp during the night, without even a word of thanks, and stole a pair
of blankets from the hospital as well, which the doctor had to make
good to the government. And yet it was known that the miserable
specimen of. manhood had two or three thousand dollars in his possession
at the time.

We come across meanness in our fellow-man occasionally, but sel-
dom is it found among frontiersmen, whether they be teamsters, cow-
boys, miners, or army men. As a rule, they are generous and brave
and appreciate any act of kindness done them, especially in sickness.
They will fight on slight provocation, and are reckless, dare-devil kind
of fellows ; but do them an act of kindness at any time, and they are
your friend and champion ever after. If a scabby sheep happens to
get in among them they soon find him out and run him out of camp.

On the 11th of February, Company “H,” First Cavalry (mine),
thirty men of Company “D,” Twenty-third Infantry, Lieutenant F.
L. Dodge, and fourteen. Indian scouts, all under command of General
Crook, left Warner for an expedition to Stein’s Mountain, hoping to
get on toa band of Indians in their winter home. Our direction for
two or three days was north. When we reached Warner Lake, fifteen
miles from the post, the entire command, pack-train and all, crossed
the lake on the ice,—I suppose a distance of five or six miles,—then
we had the shelter of high bluffs all along the east shore and not more
than a foot of snow on the ground. On this trip our transportation
was very limited, so that the luxury of a tent was not admissible. We
therefore would lay our rubber blankets or heavy canvas on the snow,
then our blankets, and then turn in for the night, with a piece of can-
vas or rubber coat on top, and our soft, comfortable snow-bed would
be down in the morning a foot or more, caused by the heat of our
bodies. We generally rested very comfortable, especially after the
snow had settled under us, so as to let us down below the surface of the
snow-level, where the cold wind could not reach us.

After we left the Warner Valley we got up on to high table-land
and deep snow, where progress was slow ; the men had to break trail,

1889. OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE INDIANS. 497

the horses and pack-train following. We reached the head of “ Dunder
and Blitzen” Valley, in Stein’s Mountain, on the fifth day out, and halted
until about 9 o’clock P.M., when we again started for the valley, hoping
to surprise an Indian camp before daylight, as our scouts, who had
started several hours ahead of us in the morning, had reported a camp
about eight or ten miles down the valley, with Chief Wee-aha-wah in
command. We found the snow in the valley about eighteen inches
deep, with a hard crust on top, making it very hard work for both: men
and horses to get along. We proceeded cautiously down the valley.
The night was clear and exceedingly cold. Soon after midnight our
advance ran on to a small party of Indians camped in the willows
along the banks of the “‘ Dunder and Blitzen” Creek. The Indians made
for the thick underbrush, and firing on both sides was quite lively for
nearly an hour. We could not see the Indians, of course,—neither
could they see us,—the direction of fire being obtained only when the
flash of a gun revealed the location of the shooter. We remained
about an hour, trying to get them out; but the brush was so thick and
spread over such a large surface of ground that it was useless to waste
time, as we hoped to get larger game at daylight. We therefore con-
tinued our march until about 3 0’clock a.m. The scouts intimated that
we were not far from the large camp and it would be well to remain in
a secluded position until it was light enough to see what we were doing.
We therefore dismounted and “ stood to horse” for four long hours. Day-
break did not come until about seven o’clock, so there we stood in single
file in the snow-trail, stamping our feet and hands to keep up circulation,
our poor horses humped up like an enraged cat, their bodies a mass of
frost, and mane and tail almost a solid mass of icicles. Perfect quiet
was enjoined on the command, as we did not know just how near we
might be to our prospective and unsuspecting Indian camp, Even the
lighting of a match to get a smoke had to be done under the shelter
of the capes of our overcoats, and then extinguished before throwing
it away. It was a weary watching, those long four hours before dawn,
with the thermometer not less than 10° or 12° below zero.

With the first streak of day we mounted and pushed on, in the
mean time getting ammunition ready and convenient for handling if we
should happen to “jump” a camp of hostiles. But on and on we went
and no Indians. We marched until 11 o’clock A.m., and not a sign of an
Indian, and, as all hands were very much in need of breakfast, the gen-
eral put us into camp where we could get water from a stream, instead of
waiting for a couple of hours to get enough snow melted down to make
coffee, as we had been doing for several days previous. Our horses
also got water, instead of snow, and then nibbled the tops off the sage-
brush and rye-grass that appeared above the snow. If any camp had
been seen by our scouts, the midnight attack must have given the alarm,
and the entire band moved to a more secure place. But no trail or

498 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

other indication of their presence was anywhere visible. We remained
in camp the balance of the day, hoping that our scouts, who were out,
might possibly run on to a rancherie ; but nothing of the kind occurred,
and, having but a few more days’ rations on hand, we were ordered
back to Warner for more rations and a sufficient number of pack-mules
to carry a month’s supply. We had but a few pack-animals on the
trip, as the train proper was in the Surprise Valley, south of Camp
Bidwell, after grain and flour. We reached the post on the 22d of
February, and immediately commenced putting things in order for a
longer scout early in March.
W. R. ParneEtt,
Brevet Lt.-Colonel U.S.A. (retired).

(To be continued.)

THE RESULT OF A VISIT TO A MILITARY
POST.

I was making a call on a married lady of the army, not long since,
during the two or three days she was stopping at Fort Grimly, en
route to the station of her husband, having been somewhat anxious
to see her, because I had understood that she was young, very pretty,
and au fait in army matters. She had been on a visit to her home in
the far East, where she had enjoyed the pleasure of several months
among rich relatives and friends. I remarked that the monotony of
our western posts was a sad contrast to the scenes from which she had
lately parted, and said that I presumed she must regret having had
to leave them.

“ No,” said she, “I do not; in fact, I am rather glad to get back
to our home in the army. We enjoy a kind of Bohemian life that is
irresistible, and there is not one of our society belles that has ever
tasted the pleasures of a military life at a frontier post that would not
wish to live it over again.”

Feeling sure that there must have been a little romance connected
with her marriage in the army, I asked her, in the course of conver-
sation, what induced her to cast her lot with us.

“A man with brass buttons on his coat,” she replied, naively.

“Yes, I suppose so,” I assented ; “ but under what circumstance ?”
I further inquired, explaining that I sometimes wondered how it was
that ladies so well cared for at home could ever be sufficiently fasci-
nated with a life on the frontier as to cause them to marry army
officers and be contented with their lot, being deprived, during nine-
tenths of the time, of all the modern conveniences that are to be found
in respectable houses in the cities, and of many of the comforts and
enjoyments to be had near the centres of civilization.

“Tt isstrange,” she replied, “but nevertheless true. I presume a
number are like myself; it’s the man with the brass buttons, as I before
remarked. The surroundings, so long as they are of a semi-respecta-
ble character, do not amount to much, if one has a good husband and a
mutual love exists between him and the wife. You gentlemen think
that army life is monotonous unless you are off trying to find some-
body to kill; but we ladies find that a military life in time of peace is

500 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

full of variety,—an ever-changing panorama,—and hence our appreci-
ation of it. You asked me under what circumstances I married into
the army. If you care to listen I will tell you, but I warn you if you
interrupt me I’m certain to stop short at the most interesting part of it.”

I promised that I would be an attentive listener, and the longer
she detained me in her presence the more agreeable it would be to me.
She then began:

*‘T did not know much about the army several years ago; in fact,
never thought about it, until one summer Mrs. H , the wife of the
president of Railroad, invited me to take a summer trip with her.
She was the most charming woman to travel with that I ever met.
Under her guidance everything moved in a perfect system of law and
order. To tell the truth, I shrewdly suspect that the success of
Railroad is due to the sound advice she gives her husband on matters
of interest. She knew everything about a railroad, from a spike to a
steam-engine, and yet, as she moved about in her easy and graceful
manner, you would have supposed that she didn’t see a thing but the
guest she was devoting herself to.

“ Well, we traveled in the president’s special car wherever the
different railroads could take us, visiting remote places on horseback
sometimes, and sometimes in spring wagons. We included Denver,
Cheyenne, San Francisco, the Yosemite, and Yellowstone Park in our
trip, and visited places of interest in the vicinity of each. Out in
those wilds I met graduates of Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and other
institutions, young men who were shining lights in Eastern society,
all working for themselves in the cattle and mining business. Some
of them have become veritable cattle-kings; but if one judged them
by their appearance they might be taken for cow-boys.

“T was the greenest thing in the world regarding western matters,
and many a time I was laughed at for my inquiries as to what this and
that meant. Among the first was when I was asked if I was afraid to
ride a broncho. I had heard of Odd-Fellows riding goats, of Bedouins
riding camels, of Hindoos riding elephants, and I even went so far as to
think of some stories about Africans riding ostriches ; but the broncho
was beyond me, and I modestly inquired what on earth kind of an ani-
mal was that. To my intense surprise I was pointed out a group of
horses, all saddled to take us into the mountains, and informed that they
were bronchos! Then commenced my western education. I discovered
that a house was called a ranche, that a wagon and span of horses, or
an entire train of wagons, was called an ouéfit, that a stable-yard, or
place to keep animals in, was termed a corral. One of our party saw
a deer and started to kill it, but he didn’t do it, and when I asked
the guide why the gentleman did not shoot it, he quietly replied, ‘Oh!
he’s got the buck-fever ’ Remembering this when the gentleman re-
turned, I was heartily laughed at for asking him if he didn’t wish

1889. RESULT OF A VISIT TO A MILITARY POST. 501

some medicine from our little chest, as I was afraid he might become
seriously ill with the buck-fever !

“T don’t wonder that you laugh,” she continued, addressing me, ‘
“for I have to laugh to myself every time I think of it. Well, on our
return trip I left the party and paid a visit to Cousin Mary Halford,
at Taubart City. Near that place there is a fort. Mary knew as little
about the fort as a Brazilian ape. As I had never been inside of one,
I expressed the desire to see it,—just for a ‘lark.’ Being her visitor
she could not deny me this pleasure, but I saw by her manner that she
was reluctant to go. However, she had her pony phaeton hitched up,
and we drove out there. Precious little there was in the shape of a
fort, and the only reason I could imagine for its being called one was
because it hadn’t the slightest resemblance to such a structure.

“When we arrived at the gate-way we became nervous and timid,
and peeped in to see if we could discover any one to speak to. Nota
soul could we spy, except a cross, grumpy-looking fellow, with a gun
on his shoulder, marching up and down in front of a house that stood
near the entrance. That fellow was so murderous-looking to us that
we concluded we would not risk our lives confronting the ogre, just
to satisfy a woman’s curiosity about a fort. We were about turning
our horse’s head towards town when we espied coming towards us
something with brass buttons down the front of his coat, round things
on his shoulders, and an Italian brigand’s hat on. I supposed that
he thought the style of dress made him ferocious-looking, like the
man with the gun. He marched straight towards us, and as he came
nearer I said to Mary, ‘Oh, pshaw! it’s only a little boy dressed up
in soldier’s clothes and having a little fun. Let’s ask him if we can
go in.’ Mary assented in a quiet way, and I was about to call out,
‘I say, little boy,’ when, what do you think? Our supposed little
boy turned out to be a little, dried-up, wizen-faced old man! He came
shambling up to us, and, taking off his brigand’s hat, squinted down
one eye and opened up the other on us, and in a low mezzo-soprano
voice inquired our wishes.

“We told him that we had never been in a fort, and that we would
like to see one.. With a smile as childlike and bland as ever radiated
from the countenance of a ‘ heathen Chinee,’ he told us to drive in the
gate-way ; that he would have ‘ morderly,’ or something like that, take
our horse and hitch it for us; then we could walk around.

“T wished, at the time, that it had been some nice young fellow ;
but you know beggars couldn’t be choosers, and as the old fellow said
he would be pleased to show us about we graciously accepted. I
thought it queer that an old codger who had such a nice-looking young
soldier tagging at his heels could throw away so much valuable time
showing two silly girls about, and I expressed myself as fearing that

we would trespass on his time.
Vou. I. N. S8.—No. 5. 88

502 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

“No, not in the least,’ he said, and, waving his hand all about
him, observed, ‘this is my world. It only moves at my will.’

“Good gracious! I thought; he must imagine himself a king.
But then I suddenly remembered that in these days there’s but little
difference between a crank and a king.

“We drove inside, and the little old fellow helped us out of our
phaeton, and—he squeezed my hand as he did so, holding on to it a
little longer than what seemed to me exactly proper; but then I
thought possibly it was a way that army officers had of doing things,
and so I squeezed his in turn. You ought to have seen how shocked
Mary was when I told her of it afterwards.

“Then we started to see what was to be seen, and, approaching the
house before which that murderous-looking wretch was marching up
and down with the gun, the fellow suddenly stopped and yelled out in
an unearthly way, ‘Run out the guard for the contraband officer !’
at the same time bringing down his gun so quickly and with such
force that every piece of iron on it rattled. This frightened me so
badly that I started to run; but the old gentleman called me back, and
said that it was only a form!

“¢ Well, the fellow needn’t scare a body to death with his horrid
forms,’ I remarked, quite testily, at which he laughed heartily ; but I
didn’t see anything to laugh at; neither did Mary, for, although she
stood her ground, she shivered like a frightened deer.

“‘T had heard there were negro troops in the army, and I thought,
‘ Well, we’re in for it now ; here we are being escorted by a contraband
officer.’ I must have looked at him quizzically, because he wanted to
know what the matter was. I told him very frankly that I was look-
ing to see if he really was a colored officer, as I had heard there was
some in the army. He seemed offended at this, and wished to know
why I thought him a mulatto.

“T said that the man with the gun yelled ‘ Run out the guard for
the contraband officer,’ and as the cause for it must lay between him
and the young fellow tagging at his heels, I presumed it must have
some meaning regarding himself. Then you ought to have heard
that man laugh. Laugh! why, he laughed so hard that the shock
loosened the strings of his unmentionables, and they hung about his
heels all the time he was with us. Notwithstanding his extreme levity,
I didn’t see anything to laugh at.

“While he was exercising his risibles, out rushed a lot of men,
some with guns in their hands and some without any, and all stood up
in a row. One of them said ‘’Sent ’up!’ and they stuck their guns
out in front of them, standing as stiff as broomsticks,

““¢ What company is that?’ I inquired.

“<«That? Oh!—that is Company “Q,”’ he replied.

“¢ And that’s a part of the regular army ? I asked.

1889. RESULT OF A VISIT TO A MILITARY POST. 503

“¢ Yes,’ he answered.

“¢Then I have seen some militia companies that present a better
appearance than that one,’ I rather proudly asserted.

“¢ Well—er—er—you see,’ said he, ‘those men are special wards
of the government, and they have to be particularly provided for. In-
deed, they are such favored individuais that when they ride out they
have to be honored with an escort. You’ll scarcely believe it, I know,
but they are such self-sacrificing men that most of them are giving
their services to the government without pay.’

“* They don’t look like such a high-toned lot of men,’ I observed,
‘ with their dirty clothes and untidy appearance ; but I suppose it won’t
do to judge by appearances in this case.’

“*No,’ said he, ‘for one might suppose, by seeing those iron bars
at the windows, that it was a kind of prison; but, bless your soul,
those men have private rooms in that building which the other com-
panies are not permitted to have, and the bars are placed at the windows
to keep outsiders from interfering with the inmates.’

“T didn’t believe a word he said, but I expect he thought I did.
Then we strolled along, peeping into this and that place, until we came
to a long low building, which we were informed was the barracks of
Company ‘H.’ I thought it was a hospital, with little iron beds all
around a great large room, and at the foot of each was a painted box,
about the size of a small trunk, one of which each man had to keep his
clothing in. They called them lockers. Why they couldn’t call them
trunks or boxes I don’t know; but I presume the army had run out
of words, and in consequence had adopted this from the navy. I be-
came so mixed up by the variety of things they had the same name
for that I felt as if I didn’t know what I was talking about half the
time. Our escort called a wagon full of rubbish a police wagon, which
was no more like a city police wagon than a chicken-coop is like a
dwelling-house. He spoke of the police of the post, and I looked about
for policemen in uniform. He called the fort ‘ the post,’ and said the
man with the gun was walking ‘his post,’ and termed a stick of wood
stuck in the ground ‘a pos¢.’ Each had as much relation to the other
as Aunt Jemima’s brindle cow had to the barn-yard rooster.

“ We entered the barracks of Company ‘ H,’ and some chap yelled
out, ‘Tenshoon-n-n !’ and every fellow there was in the room jumped
up like jacks-in-the-box, and stood as if they had ramrods stuck in
their throats. I thought at first they were going to make a charge on
us, and I looked around for a defensive position ; but I soon found out
that this was merely another form, which was necessary to be complied
with when an officer entered a room. I thought then that these
shoulder-strapped gentlemen had a right to feel their importance when
such nice-looking soldiers had to be hopping, skipping, and jumping
every time ‘the former put in an appearance. I wanted to use an

504 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

expression just here that I had heard in my rambles, which was, ‘ You
can just bet your bottom dollar I wouldn’t do it,’ but was afraid I
would shock our host.

“From this room we were invited to go into the mess-hall and
kitchen.’ I was simply astounded. The floor was so clean and white
that you could have made bread on it without soiling the dough, and
the kitchen closets would shame the best servant-girls in the world. I
stepped around on tiptoes for fear of soiling something.

“ Leaving the barracks we came to a building which had no win-
dows, only two big doors ; but as it was as large as the soldiers’ houses,
and almost like them, I inquired if any soldiers lived in that.

“Qh, no,’ replied our escort, ‘that is to keep ice in, for the com-
manding officer and the quartermaster to make ice-cream with.’

“¢Surely,’ I observed, ‘two men can’t use all the ice that building
will hold?’

“<They manage it pretty well,’ said he. ‘Sometimes they give a
little of it to the other officers and some to the soldiers.’

“¢ Well, if I was one of them and didn’t get my share,’ said I, ‘I
would kick.’

“¢ You would, would you?’ the old gentleman remarked, adding,
very facetiously, ‘then you would be tried by a court-martial.’

“¢ What for? I questioned.

“« Why—er—because you kicked.’

“¢T don’t think that would be just, do you?’ I asked.

“© Yes, I do,’ he emphatically replied.

“‘¢Then I presume you are the commanding officer here?’ I ven-
tured to inquire.

“¢T am, and at your service, madam,’ he suavely remarked, with a
great deal of satisfaction, I imagined ; and then, to offer a little pleas-
antry to this magnate, I said that when I joined the army I would be
a commanding officer.

“¢Or marry one!’ he added, and gave me a sly wink with his
puckered eye. ’

“T was inclined to be angry; but then I thought maybe it was
only another one of the ways army officers had of making them-
selves fascinating, and I just determined that if he went on in that
style I’d give him a racket before I got through. I therefore said,
‘Possibly I might,’ and, giving him a pathetic kind of a glance,
startled him with the question, ‘ Are you married ?”

“Cousin Mary hereupon gave me a nudge under my ribs with her
elbow which came near knocking all the breath out of me. The little
old gentleman hesitated a great deal, but finally drawled out, ‘ Y-e-s;
but my wife is in delicate health and not here now.’

“*Oh?! I exclaimed, and drew a very long breath. Mary said it
was like asigh. Then, in order to divert the conversation, I pointed

1889. RESULT OF A VISIT TO A MILITARY POST. 505

to a grave-yard kind of an object, which stood out in the grass-plot
with white palings around it, and inquired if that was what thef
termed a national cemetery.

“The old fellow must have been disgusted with my ignorance, for
he very cynically answered, ‘ No, miss ; that’s a band-stand, where the
illustrious band of the Thirtieth Infantry discourses each evening to
listening multitudes the sweetest of harmonies, and delights the musi-
cal ear with the symphonies of Mozart, the sonatas of Beethoven, and
with a thousand and one gems of Eurgpe’s most favored composers.’

“This discourse somewhat appalled me; but quickly recovering
my equilibrium, I modestly asked, ‘ Do you play ?

“¢No,’ he said. ‘Why do you ask ?”

“* Because,’ I answered, ‘I think you are playing on your imagi-
nation somewhat ’

“ Here Mary gave me another nudge which made me grunt. Up
to this time the old gentleman had been working closer and closer to
me until he was fairly demonstrating the proximity of the Siamese
twins to each other; but at my little salvo of impertinence he veered
off a little, and opened up one eye inquiringly again. I suppose he
thought he would get even with me, for he asked,—

“Do you dance?’

“ This was my chance, and, thinking I would give him a little play
of my imagination, I replied,—

“¢Dance? Oh! I can never get enough of that Terpsichorean ex-
ercise. Whenever I float along under the influence of Strauss’s delicious
music my soul leaves the earth, and soars far away into the mazes of a
heavenly atmosphere ; and ’tis only when the music ceases that I feel
the leaden weight of humanity dragging my feet to earth again, and
my soaring soul is drawn back to its prison of clay.’

“T glanced out of the corner of my eye to see how the old fellow
would take it. A child-like smile stole over his face as he stood look-
ing at his toes, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he looked up
and said,—

“¢T see that you play—on a wind instrument !’

“¢The insulting old wretch,’ I thought. I could have boxed his
ears, but that would not have been conventional, you know. I, how-
ever, determined that I would keep even with him if I could. At
this moment up steps a nice-looking young soldier, and, touching his
cap, politely handed a note to our gallant escort. I transcended the
rules of etiquette and glanced sidewise at it, and saw that it was writ-
ten by a female hand. He opened and read it, saying to the man,
‘ All right.’ When the young fellow had gone away-I inquired if that
was an officer.

“*No,’ he replied ; ‘ that’s only a dog-robber.’

“*¢ Dog-robber !’ I exclaimed. ‘Is he paid by the United States

506 | THE UNITED, SERVICE. May

to steal dogs? And, pray, what does he do with them after he steals
them? Do soldiers eat dogs, like Indians ?”

“ Another broad grin was the first result of this volley of questions ;
then came the reply,—

“No, he’s not paid to steal dogs; neither do the soldiers eat dogs ;
but for all that the army is infested with dog-robbers. They area class
of men who prefer loafing around officers’ kitchens to doing soldiers’
duty, and are supposed to rob the dogs of their bones, hence the
sobriquet of dog-robbers.’

“ Thinking that example in this case was certain to accompany pre-
cept, I ventured to say, ‘Then you wouldn’t have one of them about
your house, would you?’

“ Down went the puckered eye and up shot the other, opening full
on me, as he replied,—

“¢ Ahem! that’s a different case. I have no dog to rob, and my
man is known as the standing orderly.’

“* A gray horse with another color,’ I observed ; but as he did not
reply to this, and thinking he was concocting some impertinent reply,
TI looked about to change the subject. My eyes fell on an individual
coming down the walk, and I asked who that dandified-looking chap
was strutting along as if he owned the whole world.

“ ¢ That’s our M.D.,’ was the response.

“T did not know what M.D. stood for any more than a child. I
knew that they had mules in the army, and had men to drive them ;
and, thinking that I had displayed ignorance enough, I assumed an air
of intelligence and said, ‘ What? That dudish-looking fellow a mule-
driver ?’

“The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I discovered my
error. The old man slapped his hand down on his leg, threw back his
head, and laughed so outrageously that I could have choked him, for
he attracted the attention of the individual referred to, and that gentle-
man meandered our way, thinking, perhaps, there was amusement to
be found with us. As he approached, the commanding officer said,—

“¢ Ladies, permit me to introduce you to our M.D. He is a very
clever gentleman, and as I have some little business to attend to (the
note, I thought) I will leave you to his tender mercies. I assure you
he is a perfect gentleman,’ and added, as he backed out from our pres-
ence with a hearty laugh, ‘even if he is a mule-driver !’

“That man looked daggers, first at us and then at the command-
ing officer, and I confess his eyes went through me. I felt a little
flutter at my heart, and the blood mounted to my temples. In a some-
what haughty tone this interesting gentleman remarked,—

“¢ Judging from what the commanding officer just said, I should
imagine, ladies, that I had been the subject of some criticism.’

*€ Mary and I looked at each other half frightened out of our wits,

1889. RESULT OF A VISIT TO A MILITARY POST. 507

for the light had gone out of his peculiarly blue eyes, and a deep green-
ish hue settled into the pupils. I really couldn’t stand it. I felt so .
queer that I blurted out, ‘I beg pardon, but the commanding officer
said you were his M.D. Not knowing what that meant, but attaching
it in some way to the army mules, I remarked that it couldn’t be pos-
sible that such a nice-looking gentleman was a mule-driver.’

“ The light came back to his eyes ; he opened his mouth to laugh,
displaying one of the best sets of teeth I ever saw; then he laughed
until he made us cackle like two geese. Finally, we all seemed by
mutual consent to tire of this, and he vouchsafed the remark,—

“ «Yes, ladies, you were correct ; I ama mule-driver. I have quite
a number of mules to contend with, but they are bipeds, and I gener-
ally drive them into the post hospital. The M.D., however, means
Medical Department.’

“ Apologies were in order, and I expect that I made them in good
shape, for that mule-driver is now my husband.”

W. HP.

THE UNITED SERVICE.

THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HORACE.

‘‘Exegi monumentum ere perennius,
Regalique situ pyramidum altius ;
Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis
Annorum series, et fuga temporum.”’
Liber III, Carmen XXX.

THE fame of Horace has far surpassed even the fondest dreams of his
imagination, for among all the writers of antiquity none is more loved,
none is more read, and none has such power to charm the universal
mind as the sweet Latin poet. In what lies the secret of his popu-
larity? He is not read by men of one class only, but his poetry. is
loved by those of diverse sympathies and professions, Clergymen,
metaphysicians, soldiers, and poets alike find ever new and fresh in-

terest in his works. Does the charm exist alone in his flowing, grace-
ful style, his exquisite language and choice similes? Or is it not
rather in the beautiful sentiments, so appropriate to men of every age
and class,—sentiments which inculcate contentment with our lot, cheer-
fulness, and resignation to whatever the Fates decree ?

From his writings we gather many pleasing pictures of Roman
life. We learn the manners and customs of the humble peasant and of
the gay courtier ; of the monarch on his throne and of the slave en-
thralled in perpetual servitude; we see the lives of the worldly and
frivolous, as well as of the statesmen and philosophers. “Of Rome,”
says Dean Milman, “or of the Roman mind, no one can know any-
thing who is not profoundly versed in Horace ; and whoever really un-
derstands Horace will havea more perfect and accurate knowledge of
the Roman manners and the Roman mind than the.most diligent and
laborious investigator of the Romani antiquities.”

Quintus Horatius Flaccus was not born of any noble family, nor
could he trace his ancestry back through kings and emperors to the
gods themselves, as did many, for his father was only an humble freed-
man who had saved a sufficient sum from his income as coactor to en-
. able him to buy a little farm on the banks of the Aufidus. And it
was there, sixty-five years before Christ, that Horace first saw the light.
Of his mother we know nothing, for he never alludes to her in any of

1889. THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HORACE. 509

his writings, as he frequently does of his father, for whom he always

entertained the fondest affection. Having early developed great abil- .
ity, his father resolved to educate him at Rome, and thus accompanied

Horace to the city and placed him under the care of Orbilius Pupillus,

that he might receive the education of a Roman gentleman. He was

attended by several slaves, and his father remained in Rome to watch
over him and guard him from the temptations offered by the luxurious

idle youths with whom he associated. In after-life Horace realized

what a debt he owed his fond parent, and in a poem addressed to

Meecenas alludes te him thus:

‘¢ Reason must fail me, ere I cease to own,
With pride, that I have such a father known.”

After leaving Rome he pursued his studies at Athens, devoting
much time to the perusal of the Greek poets. It was during his
sojourn in that city of culture that the civil dissensions at Rome culmi-
nated in the assassination of Julius Cesar, and Horace, full of youth-
ful patriotism, followed the standard of Brutus. After the battle of
Philippi, Brutus being defeated, Horace decided to return to his native
country and abandon warlike pursuits, which were foreign to his nature.
How long his father had been dead cannot be clearly ascertained, but
when the poet arrived in Rome he found himself penniless and with
no patrimonial estate to fall back upon, and thus he was obliged to turn
to literature as a profession. His Satires soon earned for himself a
reputation ; but a writer in those days needed a patron if he wished to
meet with any material success. Virgil, ever Horace’s friend, brought
him before the notice of Mecenas, a man of wealth and position, a
patron of men of letters, and the intimate friend and adviser of the
great Octavius. Between Horace and Mecenas there sprung up a
friendship which lasted through life. After some years he presented
Horace with a farm in the valley of Ustica, about thirty miles from
Rome. Of the beauty of this little Sabine home we hear much from
the grateful recipient. When the joys of luxurious city life wearied
him it was his delight to seclude himself in the quiet haunts which the
country afforded, and, reclining by the babbling brook, to court the
Muse and sing of the joys of the country and the peace which cheerful
contentment can bring.

The works of Horace consist of his Satires, in which he displays
much wit and power; his Epistles, which show great knowledge of
human nature; his Odes and Epodes, which are more familiar to us
than his other writings, and in which he proves himself a true poet,
both in thought and in the power to express that thought with attrac-
tive grace. His first book of Satires appeared when he was about thirty
years of age. The book opens with a poem addressed to Mzcenas, the
theme being that men always deem their own condition the hardest.

510 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

The soldier envies the merchant, and the merchant the soldier; the
lawyer sighs to be a farmer, and the farmer yearns to live in the city;
yet should Jove offer each the privilege of changing place with the
other, none would be satisfied. The Satires of Horace are not all by
any means satirical in their style, but are often plain descriptive or con-
versational poems, which he himself calls “rhythmical prose.” In some
he spares not the follies of the age and the vanity of the frivolous, but
his shafts are gentle, and need not have angered those at whom they
were directed.

A few critics claim that it is in the Epistles that Horace shows his
greatest powers and wins the admiration and respect of mankind. But
it is in his Odes that he is really the best known and loved, and in them
he claims te have reared an everlasting monument, as he was the first
to adapt the olian song to the Italian lyre. ‘“ Princeps AZolium,
carmen ad Italos deduxisse modus.” (Liber ITI., Carmen XXX.)

It would be a difficult task to say which of the Odes is his best pro-
duction, for they differ so widely, both in subject and style. Those
addressed to Meecenas are numerous, for Horace never lost his sense of
gratitude to his devoted patron. Their friendship was as beautiful as
that of Tennyson and Arthur Hallam. It was not prompted by self-
ish interests on either side. For what could Mecenas gain by befriend-
ing the poor poet? And that Horace did not continue his acquaintance
with the men of letters merely to satisfy ambition, is apparent, for he
was content with an humble life and sought not the pleasures of wealth.

The most beautiful of his Odes to Mzcenas is the seventeenth of the
Second Book. He sets forth his love for him in glowing colors,
averring that without the presence of his friend he cannot live:

‘Ah! te mew si partem anime rapit
Maturior vis, quid moror altera,
Nec charus eque, nec superstes
Integer? Ile dies utramque
Ducet ruinam. Non ego perfidum
Dixi sacramentum: ibimus, ibimus,
Utcunque precedes, supremum
Carpere iter comites.”’

How forcible is the expression “ mex partem anime,” “of my soul
a part”! Meecenas was more than his friend, more than his life, he was
a part of his very soul.

We are reminded of certain passages in “In Memoriam,” where
Tennyson speaks of his friendship with Arthur Hallam, as for
example:

‘But thou and I are one in kind
As moulded like in nature’s mint :
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms on either mind.’’

1889. THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HORACE. 511

And Horace says,—

‘‘ For in such sort it hath

Pleased the dread Fates and Justice, potent ever,
To interweave our path.

Beneath whatever aspect thou wert born,

Libra or scorpion fierce, or Capricorn,

The blustering tyrant of the western deep,
This will I know, my friend,

Our stars in wondrous wise one orbit keep,
And in one radiance blend.’’

There was indeed a strong magnetic attraction between the poet and
his friend, and Horace felt that should an untimely fate snatch away
Meecenas, he himself must follow. “ Ille dies utramque ducet ruinam.”
And it happened as he foretold. But a few weeks elapsed after the
death of Meecenas ere the broken-hearted Horace, refusing to be com-
forted, received the lot shaken from the urn of Fate, and was also
called to cross the dark river Styx and enter the shadowy realm of
Pluto.

The first Ode of the First Book is addressed to Mecenas, and
begins :

‘¢O Mecenas, sprung from royal ancestors,
O both my guard and my sweet hope.’’

Horace then enumerates the pleasures which delight different men,
declaring that the highest praise he desires for his poetry is the approval
of Mecenas ; possessing that, he affirms that he will reach the stars :

‘¢ Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.”’

Another Ode to his friend is an invitation to visit him at the Sabine
farm, and partake of wine, which Horace himself had put up to com-
memorate the day of Mecenas’s reappearance in the theatre after an ill-
ness, The metre is the Sapphic strophe, and was generally used in
supplications to the gods, but sometimes in a humorous manner
employed for other subjects. The first stanza is as follows:

‘Vile potabis modicis Sabinum
Cantharis Graca quod ego ipse testa
Conditum levi datus in theatro,
Cum tibi plausus.”’

It would be impossible to allude even to all the poems dedicated to
Meecenas, but there is one more which must be mentioned on account of
its prophetic utterances. The prophecies in this Ode (Liber IT., Car-
men’ XX.) and those in the thirteenth of Book Third have been more
than fulfilled. In the former he declares that Death will not end his
career, but that, like a swan, he will soar above the earth and make
~ himself known to all nations. I subjoin the translation of the last
three stanzas.

THE UNITED SERVICE.

“Than the swift son of Dedalus swifter I travel.
I shall visit shores loud with the boom of the Euxine,
And fields Hyperborean and African sands,

‘ And wherever I wander shall sing like a bird.
Me the Colchians shall know, me the Dacian, dissembling
His dismay at the might of his victor the Roman:
Me Scythia’s far son ;—learned students in me
Shall be Spain’s rugged child, and the drinker of Rhone.

‘¢ Not for me raise the death-dirge, mine urn shall be empty,
Hush the vain ceremonial of groans that degrade me,
And waste not the honors ye pay to the dead
On a tomb in whose silence I shall not repose.”’

The last Ode of the First Book, addressed in imitation of the
Greek lyric poets, to the cup-bearer at a feast, although short and not
in any way remarkable, has met with many translators. Cowper gives
two translations, one being an attempt to render the Latin Sapphic
metre into English Sapphic; the other, which is more graceful, is as

follows :
‘“‘ Bay, I hate their empty shows,

Persian garlands I detest,

Bring not me the late-blown rose,
Lingering after all the rest,

Plainer myrtle pleases me
Thus outstretched beneath my vine,

Myrtle more becoming thee
Waiting with thy master’s wine.”’

Thomas Moore gives a comic rendering, and Lord Lytton gives a
good version beginning,—

‘« Bay, I detest the pomp of Persic fashions,
Coronals wreathed with linden rind displease me.”’

A favorite Ode, and one familiar to all as being a popular college
song, is the “Integer Vite.” The theme is, that an upright man and
one free from crime does not need any weapons to defend himself; and
here Horace gives his own experience. Meeting a wolf in the woods,
while wandering free from care, although unarmed, he was not at-
tacked, on account of his virtue and integrity. This certainly seems
egotistical.

Horace’s Odes on Contentment are surpassingly lovely. Wealth
brings care and unrest, and he who has but little is really happier than
the rich and noble. The sixteenth Ode of the Second Book upon the
subject is deserving of especial notice. The third stanza should be en-
graven on the hearts of all mankind,—

‘Non enim gaze, neque consularis
Summovet lictor miseros tumultus
Mentis, et curas laqueata circum

Tecta volantes.’’

1889. THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HORACE. 513

Some of the terse sentences in this Ode have become like proverbs,
so often are they quoted. As, for instance, the last of the eighth
stanza: “ Patris quis exsul se quoque fugit ?”— Who an exile from his
native country can yet flee from himself? or, as Byron has it, “ What
exile from himself can roam?” Then, again, note this thought, “ Nihil
est ab omni parti beatum,” which, literally translated, is ‘“‘ Nothing is
on all sides blessed.” Very beautiful indeed is Cowper’s translation of
this Ode :

‘“« Hase is the weary merchant’s prayer
Who plows by night the Aigean floods,

When neither moon nor stars appear,
Or faintly glimmer through the clouds.

‘‘ For ease the Mede with quiver graced,
For ease the Thracian hero sighs ;
Delightful ease all pant to taste,—
A blessing which no treasure buys.

‘“‘ For neither gold can lull to rest,
Nor all a Consul’s guard beat off
The tumults of a troubled breast,
The cares that haunt a gilded roof.

‘¢ Happy the man whose table shows

A few clean ounces of old plate ;
No fear intrudes on his repose,
No sordid wishes to be great.

‘¢ Poor, short-lived things, what plans we lay !
Ah, why forsake our native home,
To distant climates speed away ?
For self clings close where’er we roam.

‘¢ Care follows hard and soon o’ertakes
The well-rigged ship, the warlike steed,
Her destined quarry ne’er forsakes,
Not the wind flies with half her speed.

‘¢ From anxious fears of future ill
Guard well the cheerful, happy Now,
Gild e’en your sorrows with a smile ;
No blessing is unmixed below.”’

Another very beautiful Ode upon Contentment is the first of the
Third Book. . The thoughts are the same as the one above quoted, but

the similes are different. In it Horace alludes thus to care ever
present : '
‘¢ But let him climb in pride,

That lord of halls unblest,

Up to their topmost crest,

Yet ever by his side

Climb terror and unrest ;

Within the brazen galley’s sides

Care, ever wakeful, flits,

And at his back, when forth in state he rides,

Her withering shadow sits.’”’

514 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

Lord Lytton’s translation of these lines is more brief than the
above, but still very expressive and at the same time more literal.

‘¢ Yet Conscience, whispering fears and threats,
Ascends with him the tower,
Black Care sits by him in the bark,
Behind him on the steed.”’

The Sentimental Poetry by Horace is very beautiful ; but because
he addresses so many different persons is no positive proof that he was
in love with so many fair faces as his words imply. Chloé, Lydia,
Lalage, Cinera, Nera, and Phyllis are all eulogized as the mistresses of
his affection. He must, indeed, have been fickle to loveso many. Why
Horace remained single is a question never to be solved. - It is not
probable that he ever met with any one who called forth the deepest
emotions of love, and he was not the man to marry for ambition or
wealth. His admiration for beautiful faces and graceful forms was a
part of a poet’s nature, and the romance of his life seems to be more a
series of light flirtations than any one absorbing passion.

Perhaps the most noted of his poems upon this subject, because of
the famous translation by Milton, is the fifth Ode of Book First.
Lord Lytton does not attempt any version of it, but says, “I cannot
presume to attempt any rhymeless translation of this Ode in juxtaposi-
tion with Milton’s famous version.” But Mr. Martin deems Milton’s

attempt overrated, and gives himself a literal, and at the same time
graceful, rendering of his own. Milton’s translation is as follows:

‘ What slender youth, bedewed with liquid odours,
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,

Plain in thy neatness? O, how oft shall he
On faith and changéd gods complain, and seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire!

‘« Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable,
Hopes thee of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they
T’ whom thou untried seem’st fair! Me, in my vowed
Picture, the sacred walls declares t’ have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.”’

In the use of similes Horace is most pleasing. A comparison, unless
used for ridicule, should be appropriate and clearly defined, and this
rule of rhetoric he never violates. In an Ode addressed to Chloé he
aptly compares her shyness to the young fawn aflrighted when absent
from her mother’s side. (Liber I., Carmen XXIII.)

1889, THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HORACE. 515

‘¢ Like a fawn dost thou fly from me, Chloé,
Like a fawn that, astray on the hill-tops,
Her shy mother misses and seeks,
Vaguely scared by the breeze and the forest.
Sighs the coming of Spring through the leaflets ?
Slips a green lizard, stirring a bramble?
Her knees knock together with fear
And her heart beats aloud in its tremor.”’

Light and superficial as Horace’s love-making was, yet he knew
what intense suffering can be caused by the pangs of jealousy ; for he
says, in an Ode to Lydia (Liber I., Carmen XXIII), alluding to her
admiration of one Telephus: °

‘Woe is me, Lydia! how my jealous heart
Swells with the anguish I would vainly smother !
Then in my mind thought has no settled base.
To and fro shifts upon my cheek the color,
And tears that glide adown in stealth, reveal
By what slow fires mine inmost self consumeth.”’

In the last stanza of this Ode Horace exalts that love which only
death can sever, and thereby causes one to wonder if the gifted poet
did not himself yearn for such true, faithful affection, rather than the
love of the young and fickle maidens who so often pleased him.

‘Thrice happy, ay, more than thrice happy, they
Whom one soft band unbroken binds together ;
Whose love, serene from flickering and reproach,
In life’s last moment finds the first that severs.”’

Many poems which breathe a hope of immortality are to be found
among the writings of Horace. For the yearnings after immortality
are implanted in the hearts of all men by nature, and there are but few
can really deny a belief in the life everlasting. The pagan religion
taught existence after death, a place of happiness, the Elysian fields ;
and also a place of punishment, called Tartarus. Both the Greeks and
Romans believed in the judgment-hall of Minos, where all must appear,
and then be forever under the rule of Pluto. But dim and shadowy
were the pictures of the soul’s life after crossing the river Styx, and
none looked forward to death as anything but an inevitable exile, which
all were glad to postpone. The knowledge of certain death did not
teach them to prepare for it, or lead to meditation, but only incited
them to enjoy more fully the pleasures of the fleeting day.

Horace’s Odes upon Immortality are filled with suggestive thoughts
as to what he might have been had his life occurred after instead of
before the greatest event in the history of the world. Yet who can say
that the kind-hearted poet did not live up to the light that was given
him?

516 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

The same thoughts run through the sublime hymn “Thanatopsis”
that are found in the matchless Ode by Horace. (Liber II., Carmen
III.) It would be too long to quote it in its entirety, either in the
original or in any of the beautiful translations. But I would call
attention particularly to the last two stanzas :

‘« Divesne prisco natus ab Inacho
Nil interest an pauper et infima
De gente sub divo moreris,
Victima nil miserantis Orci.

Omnes eodem cogimur: omnium

Versatur urna serius ocyus
Sors exitura et nos in eternum
Exilium impositura cymbe.”’

The translation by Mr. Martin is as follows:

‘Tt recks not whether thou
Be opulent, and trace
Thy birth from kings, or bear upon thy brow
Stamp of a beggar’s race:
In rags or splendour, death at thee alike,
That no compassion hath for aught of earth, will strike.
One road, and to one bourne
We all are goaded. Late
Or soon will issue from the urn
Of unrelenting Fate
The lot, that in yon bark exiles us all
To undiscovered shores, from which is no recall.”

Notice the similarity of thought expressed in these lines of Bryant's :

‘‘ Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—the wise,—the good,
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past
Allin one mighty sepulchre.”’

But we miss in Horace any consolation in regard to the future life,
for his motto, like that of Epicurus, was to enjoy the present to the
utmost, because life was so short and the future so cheerless. Observe
the thought in the fourth Ode of the First Book, addressed to Sestius.
The theme is Spring, which awakens man and nature, and, reani-
mating all. things, also teaches us that death will soon end the bright
spring-time of life.

‘Death comes alike to all,—to the monarch’s lordly hall,
Or the hovel of the beggar, and his summons none shall stay.
Oh, Sestius, happy Sestius! use the moments as they pass;
Far-reaching hopes are not for us, the creatures of a day.
Thee soon shall night enshroud ; and the Mane’s phantom crowd,
And the starveling house, unbeautiful, of Pluto shut thee in;
And thou shalt not banish care by the ruddy wine-cup there,
Nor woo the gentle Lycidas, whom all are mad to win.”

1889. THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HORACE. 517

Horace has been much criticised for his devotion to Augustus, and
censured for flattering the susceptible emperor ; but the best critics do .
not deem him a sycophant, an unprincipled courtier, flattering in his
verses those whose conduct he could not approve. It was not until
many years after presentation to Augustus that he addresses him in
his poems otherwise than in a cold and formal manner. Then it is
true that his poems express more warmth and feeling than heretofore ;
but there is no excess, and the terms used are such as any subject migh
employ towards a monarch of the position and power of Augustus. It
was but natural that Horace should be pleased with the attention and
favor of the emperor, but we can never believe that he fawned around
him or expressed sentiments regarding him which were hypocritical.

The last years of the poet were those of quiet happiness. Always
welcome at the house of Mecenas, where he met’ with eminent literary
and political characters, yet he felt at perfect liberty to withdraw to his
quiet Sabine home, when he desired, and to indulge in the reveries which
the beauties of nature called forth. But this uninterrupted pleasure
was to have an end, and, eight years before the birth of Christ, the
greatest sorrow of his life befell him, in the loss of his dear friend
Mecenas. There seemed little left to interest Horace now. He cared
no longer to court the Muse, no longer to visit his favorite haunts ; and,
as he had foretold, his death soon followed upon that of Mecenas. As
the winter advanced and the falling leaves reminded him of that in-
evitable lot which, sooner or later, must be shaken from the urn of
Fate, he grew weaker and weaker until, finally, the three dark sisters
of Destiny came for the gentle poet, and the web of life having been
spun, the last thread was severed by the hand of Atropos. (“ Clotho
colum retinet, Lachisis net, et Atropos occat,” Clotho holds the distaff,
Lachisis weaves, and Atropos cuts.) Horace was nearly fifty-seven at
the time of his death.

We must judge of the character of this renowned man mainly from
the tenor of his writings, for but little is known of his life. Even his
most enthusiastic admirers cannot be blind to his imperfections as
viewed in the enlightenment of our age. But, although he was not
free from the vices of his time, yet when we compare him with his
contemporaries he seems to be nearly as he says: “Integer vite
scelerisque purus.” He was generous, kind-hearted, and sympa-
thetic ; he was true to the memory of his father, and was not ashamed
of his parentage; he fought manfully under Brutus when he deemed
the liberty of his country at stake, but, when he found it useless to
contend with the powers in authority, he accepted Augustus as his
emperor. B¥ nature Horace was, although quick-tempered (Epistle I.),
possessed of that choicest of her gifts,—a contented and cheerful dis-
position. He always aimed at a golden mean, and, avoiding both

riches and poverty, he was content. In youth he enjoyed the pleasures
Vo. I. N. 8.—No. 5. eect

518 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

which Roman society countenanced ; but, when he cared no longer for
them, he turned his attention to nobler pursuits.

In the era just preceding the birth of Christ the educated and
those of any real philosophical attainments were forsaking the worship
of the pagan gods, and were seeking for some one great Supreme
Being, who was indeed omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, and
not a being of the old mythological type, the Jove of ancient times.

In such an all-wise Ruler the poet Horace steadfastly believed,
being content to acquiesce in the guidance of such a Power. Grateful
for what He gave and murmuring not at what He withheld, with a
strong faith in the immortality of the soul, Horace stands forth in
bright contrast against the dark background of pagan ignorance and

superstition.
CAROLINE FRANCES LITTLE.

THE ARMY AND ITS RELATION TO THE
ORGANIZED AND UNORGANIZED
MILITIA,

WHEN, nearly a quarter of a century ago, the great war-army of the
Union marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the President of the
new republic, the Army of the United States was virtually the nation.
To-day the organized armed force of the country is composed of a
partially-trained State militia, numbering less than one hundred thou-
sand men, and a national army of twenty-five thousand soldiers.

‘The little regular force, scattered over the millions of square miles
of territory from Maine to Texas and from Oregon to Florida, con-
tains but one soldier for every two thousand four hundred inhabitants ;
it is of no weight politically, and is almost forgotten by the sixty
millions of people composing the nation.

National reaction, which followed the absorbing interest that mili-
tary matters had received during the previous years of our Civil War,
and the necessity of restoring to the country the prosperity of peace,
prevented the people, in the years which immediately followed that
struggle, from giving much attention or care to the army and navy.
Indeed, during the first decade of peace, whenever attention was called
to either of the combatant arms of the government, it was apparently
with the single purpose of lightening the burden of the tax-payer,
without regard to the efficiency of either land or naval service. This
attitude of indifference, persisted in for years, resulted with the navy
in an establishment so thoroughly reduced in fighting power as to be
neither respected at home nor feared abroad,—a navy which the
government has found necessary to create anew.

The army, however, on account of the troubles in the South, incident
to the conclusion of a great war, and the serious Indian outbreaks that
frequently arose in the West, was destined to maintain for a time its
grasp upon the attention of the people. But gradually this was
relaxed, and. only when news of a Custer massacre or of an Apache
outbreak startled the country did its fifty-odd millions of people °
realize for a moment the existence of some twenty-five thousand men
employed to protect the nation against the danger of foreign attack
along thousands of miles of unfortified sea-coast; from Indian depre-

520 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

dations over a vast extent of exposed frontier; and against domestic
violence from hundreds of thousands of the idle and dangerous classes
that Europe had sent to help build up the republic. But the interest
thus aroused quickly died away, and the army was either again
forgotten or remembered only to be attacked.

The riots of 1877 created a more lasting though still fleeting inter-
est in the national forces; there was even some discussion as to the
advisability of increasing their strength ; but, the danger over, interest
disappeared, and people forgot in a day that lives had been sacrificed
and the accumulations of years swept away by a few angry and
wrong-headed men. It was forgotten too that life and property were
as defenseless as before, and in even greater danger, for the mob had to
some extent learned not only its own strength, but the weakness of the
State forces.

During the past decade few disturbances have ruffled the great calm
of national life; the Indian troubles are, in the opinion of those best
qualified to judge, almost at an end ; the army to-day is seldom brought
to the attention of the people, and a soldier of the United States has
become almost as rare a sight in the great centres of population as a
wild Indian. The national uniform is unknown.

It is vaguely supposed that there are a few national soldiers idling
away their lives in garrison somewhere ; but for the mass of the people
the army of the United States has no real existence. The nation to-
day apparently believes itself perfectly secure from danger at home, and
beyond all risk of attack from abroad; and though the feeling mani-
fested towards the regular forces, whenever attention is called to mili-
tary matters, is friendly, the necessity for an army, no matter how
small, is doubted by the people otherwise intelligent.

If a government of the people for the people and by the people did
not sometimes require, as experience has proved, a body of men ready
to instantly enforce the will of this people upon the few unruly indi-
viduals who, mistaking themselves for the nation, attempt by violence
to enforce their own will upon the majority ; if all men had everything
to gain by peace and established government, and everything to lose by
violence and anarchy ; if, finally, all foreign nations were content to
allow us to follow out in peace our own plans, and would quietly per-
mit us to check their designs whenever we deemed our interests
imperiled or our doctrines of government contemned, the army might
indeed be disbanded and the navy allowed to decay.

But the era of universal peace has not yet come; and if the United
States intend to maintain order at home and respect abroad ; if, more-
over, they intend to enforce the bold principles of the Monroe Doctrine,
which have now become almost as firmly established among our
political tenets as the principles of the Constitution itself, they must
possess an active force ready for instant use, a force perfect in disci-

1889. THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA. 521

pline, organization, and equipment, and sufficiently strong to delay
invasion, or to quell an ordinary insurrection ; they must possess, -as a:
first reserve, a body of men that can be quickly put in the field with the
necessary artillery and transport,—in other words, a trained and
efficient militia ; and lastly, they must possess the means of readily
organizing and equipping the great ultimate army of the United States,
—the volunteers.

Under the laws, the general purposes for which an army is main-
tained in this country are: “ To execute the laws of the Union, to sup-
press insurrection, and repel invasion.” Within these general lim-
itations, if we neglect for a moment the consideration of the use of the
army as a guard to the Indians, the specific purposes for which a regu-
lar establishment will in the future be most needed, and to the enforce-
ment of which all other considerations should be subordinated, are, first,
to repel or delay invasion; second, to form a national police for the
execution of national laws, and for the protection of national treasures ;
and third, to form a school in which shall be trained the reserves in
peace, and from which shall come the skilled soldier capable of dis-
ciplining, equipping, feeding, and fighting the raw levies that must
be our final dependence in war.

Much has been said and written in recent years about the danger of
foreign attack, and the details of our defenseless sea-coasts and frontiers
have been so industriously spread abroad that there is probably no
statesman of Europe more ignorant of our helpless condition than are
our own legislators. Undoubtedly we are at present unable to protect
our coasts against any inferior power that comes to attack them, and are
in the greatest danger. But it should not be forgotten that nations
do not attack each other like strange dogs, and that going to war for an
idea is out of fashion: nothing less than a conflict of material interests
will bring about a great struggle.

When the United States came into existence as a nation, the ideas
embodied in the formation of the republic, little understood abroad,
were left to work out their own destiny comparatively unnoticed ; but
the Civil War and the events which followed caused the nations of
Europe to realize that a new and very important factor had entered the
problem of the world’s progress, and that the great republic was some-
thing more than a mere experiment in political economy. Since the
close of that struggle, the country has grown rich and prosperous beyond
the dreams of those who saw the war end; our interests abroad have
vastly increased ; and though our great ultimate strength in men, money,
and war-resources is thoroughly understood throughout the world,
our immediate weakness is equally well known, and is a constant menace
to peace,

To-day we are, so far as defense is concerned, in much the same
condition as was China in the beginning of the Opium War, but

§22 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

greatly nearer the sources of danger. Europe watches us closely, and
knows as much of us as we know of ourselves; our geographical iso-
lation has grown less with each mile of increase in the speed of sea-
going ships, and with every foot of cable laid; and the waters which
separate us from Europe now serve only to connect. With the dimi-
nution of our geographical isolation our political independence has de-
creased, until the time has come when—with English railroads north of
us, English naval stations and an imperial fortress at our very doors,
a French canal in the process of construction in the south, and with
German interests strongly developing in Mexico, the West Indies, and
the Pacific—we are hardly more isolated politically by the oceans around
us than is England by her narrow “silver streak.” Still, geographical
position will ever prevent the United States from becoming involved
in the jealousies and quarrels that contiguity and the race hatreds of
European states frequently force upon them. A war with a distant
power is always a serious undertaking ; and when that power is com-
posed of sixty millions of the most inventive, intelligent, and energetic
people that the world has ever seen, with almost unlimited wealth and
war-resources, it is safe to say that nothing but a serious cause could
lead any government to declare war against it,; unless, indeed, some -
country well prepared for war and controlled by an irresponsible gov-
ernment, rash enough to disregard the reckoning that might after-
wards be exacted, should be tempted by our enormous wealth and de-
fenseless condition to lay our rich sea-ports under contribution, and trust
to the changeable temper of a representative government to overlook
to-morrow the wrongs and injuries of to-day.

But, disregarding this remote contingency, a glance at the condition
of affairs at the present time will show that causes which might lead to
war between the United States and a great European power are diffi-
cult to find.

With Russia, Italy, or Austria such a thing is at present almost
out of the question.

Prince Bismarck, it is true, is said to have not the most friendly
feelings towards the country that has taken from Germany many of
her valuable citizens; but the consolidation of the German empire,
dangers near home, and colonizing projects abroad undoubtedly give
Germany enough to occupy her attention.

With the exception of an occasional dispute over the return to the
Fatherland of a naturalized American citizen, or an occasional reflec-
tion upon the American hog, there have been few difficulties between
the United States and Germany as there have been few points at which
the interests of the two countries touch. It is true that German in-
terests are increasing greatly in Mexico; this, and the possible acquisi-
tion of Cuba by Germany, may lead to future complications. But
Germany, wiser than France, will not waste her strength in distant

1889. THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA. 523

wars as long as the present great problems of European politics re-
main unsolved.

With France, the danger of serious complications is greater. Indeed
it would be folly to assume that a country as changeable in her policy,
her friendships, and her government as is republican France will be
governed by aught but the apparent interest, or feeling of the moment,
in her relations with other states; and, in spite of traditional friend-
ship and statues of Liberty, imperial France once more under the sway
of a man unfriendly to this country might give evidences of hostility
to the United States as strong as those shown by Louis Napoleon
during our recent war.

But France learned a lesson in Mexico that she will not soon
forget ; and it is probable that recent difficulties in Madagascar and
Tonquin have taught her the folly of frittering away in distant
struggles the strength she will one day need in Europe. Only in the
event of the completion of the Panama Canal—a thing still doubtful,
at least so far as the present French company is concerned—is there
serious danger that such aconflict of interests may arise as will occasion
war between the two countries.

Of all the great powers, it is, perhaps, with England that the most
frequent and serious difficulties are to be anticipated, but it is with
England that there is, perhaps, the least real danger of war. Threat-
ening questions will undoubtedly come up for settlement between the
two countries in the future, as they’ have in the past; commercial
rivalry will create jealousies ; the struggle for supremacy on the seas,
which must come when our reduced mercantile marine is again able to
compete for the carrying trade of the world, may jeopardize peace ; the
fisheries will from time to time give the newspapers something to say ;
and so long as Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, the Irishman
will shout his anathemas against the Saxon from the safe refuge of our
shores. When a canal, whether French or American, connects the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, England may attempt to secure its control,
as she did that of the Suez Canal, and as she will ever attempt to control
any of the world’s new water-ways that may affect her interests; and
possibly in the future the lion’s claws may have to be detached every
now and again from some tempting morsel like Tortugas or Hawaii.
But the lion is learning that other beasts and birds, especially eagles,
have claws that command respect.

Many other causes might lead to difficulties between the two coun-
tries ; but England is not disposed to enter lightly upon a struggle with
a powerful adversary, and though the policy she has adopted towards
the United States in recent years has not.always been friendly, it has
been extremely cautious, and shows that two wars have laid the foun-
dation of a respect that our vast wealth and sixty millions of people
have made lasting. In addition, the great amount of British capital

524 THE UNITED SERVICE. , May

invested in the land, railroads, mines, and mercantile interests of the
United States would make a war between the two countries exceedingly
unpopular with the class that in England holds the purse-strings.
Though the points of contact are many and the friction at times may
be great, it is safe to say that the friendship between the people of the
two countries is so warm, the bond of kinship so close, and the com-
mercial ties so strong, that war is exceedingly improbable.

Though in war it is especially true that the unexpected happens,
the present condition of European politics precludes the idea of aggres-
sion on the part of the great powers; and, as it is most improbable
that the United States, with their peace-loving tendencies and weak
army and navy, will assume the part of aggressor, it is safe to say
that under present conditions a war is not apt to arise with any of the
great nations of Europe.

With others, however, the danger is not so slight ; Mexico, Chili,
and perhaps other American states, would be glad to see us humbled.
Cuba, with the constant filibustering expeditions she invites, may in-
volve us in trouble with Spain ; and Spain herself has at least once in
recent years assumed a threatening attitude towards the United States.

At any moment, the ignorant population of the northern States of
Mexico may commit acts that the people of our own border States
would delight in forcing to war; and the large and increasing amount
of American capital invested in a country where, as in Mexico, the
government is unstable and the people seditious and ignorant, must
be a constant threat to the existence of peace.

Instead of being grateful to the strong power ever ready to protect
them from European aggression,—a power which, in the case of
Mexico, alone prevented: her from becoming once more a European
dependency,—both Mexico and Chili are jealous of the United States ;
and even the better-informed of their people would be glad to see a
war that, as many of them believe, might end, if not in their success,
at least in checking the progress of their powerful neighbor.

Danger of foreign war seems, then, to lie rather in the audacity of
the smaller powers than in the strength of the greater, and in the con-
dition of our sea-coasts, whose defenselessness is a constant invitation
to attack.

Of nations, even more than of individuals, is it true that they alone
keep their possessions and their rights who can protect them. Guns and
ships, fortifications and armies, conduce greatly to international polite-
ness ; we have none of these, and one day some poor neighbor, unable
longer to resist the temptation, may snatch a bite from the apple of our
prosperity that will leave us nothing but the core. We may punish
him afterwards, or we may not, but the damage done may well be
irreparable.

A large standing army we shall probably never have, but we can

1889. THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA. 525

and ought to have, as a protection against foreign attack, a sea-coast pro-
vided at vulnerable points with modern guns and fortifications ; a small
highly-trained and efficient corps of garrison and field artillery, cavalry, -
and infantry, concentrated at a few strategic points near the Mexican
and northern frontiers to check a sudden invasion sufficiently long to
give time for the mobilization of the reserves, perhaps even for the
organization of the volunteers ; and to furnish patrols, when necessary,
to prevent marauding. Thus prepared, the country need have little to
fear on the score of foreign enemies, and the army would fulfill the
first of the objects for which it is maintained.

Our second, and perhaps more serious, peril lies in the greatly-
increasing numbers of the idle and dangerous classes that since the
Civil War have poured into the country from Europe. For many
years these noxious elements were harmlessly absorbed by the great mass
of peace-loving, industrious citizens; but each year has brought accre-
tions of bad men and bad ideas, and each year the process of absorption
has become more difficult. Since the outbreak of the Civil War nearly
ten millions of immigrants have come to our shores,—men, largely
drawn from the poorest and vilest classes of Europe, who have come
not to colonize and improve their condition by honest industry, but to
propagate and practice in communities of their own the peculiar ideas
of personal license which are the outgrowth of generations of ignorance
and misery. Each year the United States have less land to give and
more of the idle and helpless to feed ; the tendency of the poorer classes
to herd together in cities becomes greater, and the struggle for existence
fiercer ; each year we become more Europeanized. Who can doubt that
the soil thus prepared for the sowing of the dragon’s teeth will yield an
abundant harvest of evils that force alone can suppress? The time has
already come when men must hang for daring to put in practice the
doctrines of defiance of the law that have been openly and persistently
preached by those more dangerous to society than the men called crim-
inals; and should the day come when these men will not stand quietly
by and allow their leaders to be put to death by the law, the nation
will possess but one power that can carry its decrees into execution,—
a regular paid soldiery.

To say that a republic needs no standing army to protect the people
from themselves is about as wise as to say that a city needs no police to
protect its citizens from each other. So far as the interior economy of
the nation is concerned, a national army is a national police, existing
purely for the purpose of enforcing the laws in the last resort. If its
strength exceeds that necessary for the purpose, a standing army might,
in the hands of unprincipled men, become a threat to the liberties of
the people ; but this is a danger so remote, in a nation whose people are
as intelligent, bold, and numerically strong as the Americans, as to be
unworthy of consideration.

526 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

For police purposes a large body of trained soldiery is unnecessary ;
but a small thoroughly-disciplined force is vital to the safety of life
and property. This force must stand ready to crush at its very incep-
tion an uprising which, allowed to grow, might precipitate a class war
whose results could not be foretold.

Disturbances commonly arise at great centres of population, which
are, as a rule, the great railway centres also ; and as a police force to be
effective must be at the very place where its presence is required, and
where its power needs to be continually felt, garrisons near the large
cities lying on the great thoroughfares of commerce are a necessity for
the future.

The value of a police force lies largely in its moral effect, and the
presence of even small bodies of United States troops, at places where
exist large numbers of the turbulent foreign population, would be an
assurance of safety and a menace to lawlessness whose value could not
be reckoned ; but it must not be forgotten that moral effect without
innate strength is quickly lost; therefore the garrisons of the larger
cities must be sufficiently strong to inspire respect.

In addition, then, to the small permanent force of infantry, cav-
alry, field and garrison artillery necessary for frontier defense, future
safety will require, at the great centres of population, a force of
regular infantry or cavalry, with a few field or machine-gun bat-
teries, to “execute the laws of the Union and to suppress insurrec-
tion.”

The growing importance of the relations of the regular army of the
United States to the State militia is the third, and perhaps chief, con-
sideration affecting the future of the permanent establishment.

In a state where military service is voluntary and not a duty im-
posed upon all citizens alike, the permanent armed force will be small ;
reliance in time of danger will be placed upon the unmilitary citizens,
and the problem of preparing these citizens for service in future
armies is rightly thought to be one of vital importance. With us the
solution of this problem has not even been attempted; and though we
have a mere handful of men in the standing army, and in the organ-
ized militia a reserve so weak that even if thoroughly trained, equipped,
and concentrated, it could not make a successful defense of any threat-
ened point of our frontier, a systematic effort to form an effective
national reserve suitable to modern conditions has never been made.

However confidently we may believe that our enormous numbers and
great wealth render the United States secure against invasion, it is
still true that a great aggregation of men sprung from nearly every
race under the sun must be less united and less prompt to act in an
emergency than a small homogeneous state. It may therefore happen,
‘should war come suddenly upon us, that our numbers and wealth will
prove sources of weakness by preventing or delaying united action, or

1889. THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA. 527

by causing the immediate safety of property to be considered before
future security and national honor.

Be that as it may, it is at least true that both numbers and wealth
would be useless without time to convert the latter into war material
and the former into soldiers.

Time can only be obtained by means of an available force suffi-
ciently strong to check any probable attempt at invasion ; and as our
standing army will ever be small and widely scattered, the nation must
trust its future safety to a strong and well-organized reserve of militia.

During the years which immediately followed the Civil War, the
country possessed an enormous reserve of soldiers trained in actual
warfare, and the question of preparing men for future service in our
armies could well be allowed to rest. But nearly a quarter of a cen-
tury has passed since that reserve was formed, its veterans are rapidly
passing away, and soon the nation will find itself absolutely without
men of military training, with the exception of the few who have
served in the regular establishment, and of the greater but still small
number who have been to some extent trained in the organized militia.

In addition, it is to be feared that the soldierly spirit is growing
less throughout the country ; increasing attention is given to commer-
cial pursuits, and the old pioneer class, perhaps the best material for
soldiers that modern times have produced, has nearly passed away.
The majority of the people, living in thickly-settled communities, are
losing the familiarity with danger and habit of adventure that charac-
terized the American of a generation ago and made him instinctively a
soldier.

The problem of repairing this loss, of preserving among the people
a remnant of the soldierly instinct, and of preparing our citizens for
service in future armies, can no longer be neglected.

For nearly a century the country has clung to the old idea that the
regular army is a nucleus around which larger armies will be formed
in time of danger; and our policy has been to scatter throughout the
masses men of military training whose duty it is in time of war to
convert civilians into soldiers, and mobs into armies. This plan was
excellent when wars lasted for years, or when, as with General Taylor
in 1846, two or three thousand men constituted an army. But to-day,
when war comes preparations cease; every great nation, except the
United States, is an armed camp whose men stand ready to march at
the bugle’s call; indeed, the measure of a nation’s greatness may
almost be said to be the strength of its fighting force. Should war
come upon us, attack will follow the declaration as sparks follow the
blow of a hammer upon red-hot iron, and we shall have to fight as
best we may with the means at hand, or yield in dishonorable peace.

When that time comes the United States will have at their
disposal for defensive purposes (leaving out of consideration for the

528 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

present the veterans of the Civil War) three classes of forces,—first,
the regular army, a small body of thoroughly-trained and equipped
soldiers ; second, the organized militia, a small body of partially-trained
and equipped soldiers; and third, the unorganized militia, a great mass
of men with, as arule, no military training whatever.

Added to these would be the conscripts, men of doubtful value in
our country ; at best mere stop-gaps for troops in the field.

By the militia laws of the United States at present in force,
“ every able-bodied male citizen of the respective States resident therein,
who is of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five
years,” with certain exceptions, is to be enrolled in the militia.

Under the provisions of this act (law of 1792) the militia force of
the country should number some eight and one-half millions of men;
but of these, only about ninety-five thousand are organized ; the remain-
ing eight million four hundred thousand citizens eligible under the law
for military purposes are utterly without military training and there-
fore useless as an immediate reserve.

The danger of trusting the defense of the country to these un-
trained masses may be realized if we remember that in July, 1861,
when General McClellan assumed command of the magnificent mobs
that had gathered in and around Washington, the Army of the Poto-
mac numbered about fifty thousand men; in March following, General
McClellan, with a force on the rolls of one hundred and fifty-eight
thousand men, was ready to begin his advance. Eight months had been
consumed in preparation, and yet a distinguished soldier’ of the late
war says, “To have been enabled to establish a force of such propor-
tions and efficiency within a few months, he [General McClellan] must
necessarily have received from the general government, from the gov-
ernors of the several States, and from the various bureaus and offices
under the War Department, the most cordial and largest assistance.
Without that support, and without almost superhuman efforts on their
part, such an army could never have been created.”

On the night of July 15, 1870, the German mobilization order
was issued, and on the 31st of the same month there were four hun-
dred and fifty thousand men on the French frontier. It is said that
the fifteen days occupied by Germany in the mobilization and concen-
tration of her fifteen army corps have been reduced by half, and that
she could now mobilize thirty-five army corps in thesame time; if this
is true, and the same perfection of organization is attributed to France,
it is safe to say that either of these powers, with the enormous number
of war and mercantile ships suitable for transport purposes that they
possess, could appear at a chosen point of our Atlantic sea-board with
an army of one hundred thousand men within six weeks, or two
months, after a declaration of war. In two months our volunteers

1 General A. S. Webb, ‘‘ The Peninsula.”

1889. THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA. 529

could hardly be mustered, uniformed, and armed, much less made into
soldiers.

The country cannot, therefore, rely upon the unorganized militia,
but must trust its safety to a force that stands ready to meet an enemy ;
and as the regular army will be powerless to more than check an inva-
sion, and gain time for the mobilization of the reserves, the organized
militia must be our defense against foreign attack, but the organized
militia increased toa considerable size, thoroughly trained and equipped,
and ready instantly to take the field ; in other words, the militia con-
verted into a rea] National Guard.

As now constituted, the militia of the United States, both from its
size and from its defective organization, has little value as a national
reserve. With the exception of afew of the great Eastern and Cen-
tral States, where exist regiments not such in name alone, and of the
independent companies of the South, the country has little or no militia
available for active service. Under the present system, each State, almost,
lacks organization ; is allowed to follow its own ideas in matters of disci-
pline, uniform, and equipment; there is little artillery or cavalry ; no
properly-constituted general staff; no reserve of material; no trans-
port,—in short, nothing of that which constitutes an army beyond a
mere body of uniformed armed men. With the exception of New York,
and perhaps of one or two other Eastern States, it is in the South, and
especially in the South-west, that interest in militia matters is most
keenly felt; but heretofore this interest has been local, of much the
same character as the pride taken by the community in its base-ball
club, and has considered more the winning of prizes at mere drill com-
petitions than the efficiency of the troops as soldiers. The organiza-
tions have been largely individual in character, frequently mere social
clubs, organized with little regard to the needs of actual service, and
looking still less to the formation of a national reserve which could be
massed into armies uniform in organization and equipment.

The regular army and the militia have rarely been brought to-
gether; militia organizations have seldom seen the model upon which
they are formed ; and the men, with little knowledge of the principles
which govern in all armies, frequently acquire the most singular ideas
in matters of discipline and obedience to constituted authority.

The responsibility for this condition of affairs does not lie with the
militia, but with the general government that has permitted its National
Guard to struggle on for years unaided beneath the weight of absurd
laws; indeed, the advancement made by the State forces and the mag-
nificent regiments possessed by some of the States are little less than
marvelous.

It is true that a few regular officers have, for a limited time each
year, been detailed by the government to act as inspectors, judges at
drill competitions, and for similar work ; but beyond this slight attempt,

530 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

and a smal] annual appropriation, the general government makes no
effort to aid the improvement of the State forces ; the subject is treated
by Congress with an apathy as profound as that shown towards all
other considerations affecting the national defense.

We can never have a national reserve worthy of the name until
the national government sees fit to undertake the task of creating it ;
and it is not too much to say that in the work of training the militia,
of creating therefrom a real National Guard, uniform in organization,
equipment, and discipline, whose parts when united shall form a com-
pleted whole,—in other words, in the work of preparing the little in-
dividual army of each State to take its place in a great national army,
—must the permanent military establishment of the United States find
its largest and most important field of usefulness in peace.

Now, as heretofore, the task of organizing the military forces of
the United States must be performed by the soldiers that the govern-
ment has educated in her schools, and trained in her service; by the
few men of military mind that a country like ours, given up to com-
mercial pursuits, may possess.

Great soldiers are, perhaps, born, not made; but certainly the
working-men of an army, those who turn out the finished instrument
that the master hand wields, are made, and made, moreover, by long expe-
rience and the familiarity with detail which long experience alone gives.

When, therefore, the veterans of the last war, the men who obtained
this experience in the field, shall have passed away, it will be to the
regular army alone that the nation can look for the skilled officer capa-
ble of training her militia in peace, and of creating again a fighting
force adequate to protect the country in war.

In a government where each State has for certain purposes its own
little army, and where there are, as a consequence, thirty-eight estab-
lishments more or less effective, some model upon which all shall be
formed is a necessity ; for it is only by means of a common standard
that uniformity can be secured and a useful national reserve be created.
This model must be the army of the United States.

The problem of associating the regular army and the militia should
not be difficult of solution. Regular officers might be detailed, more
or less permanently, as adjutants, inspectors, and quartermasters-general ;
as chiefs of artillery, ordnance officers, instructors of rifle practice; in
short, to each State might be given officers of the regular service who
should act for a time as chiefs of those departments, or as advisers to
the chiefs of those departments which are deemed the necessary auxil-
iaries of the fighting force. With the comparatively large number of
officers that our army contains, those required for such duty could be
readily spared. A better method, however, and one that would relieve
the intolerable stagnation in promotion now destroying the very life
of the service, would be to permit officers of the regular establishment

1889. THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA. 531

to retire on half pay after, say, ten years’ service on the active list, on
condition that they serve for a specified time, in one of the capacities
before mentioned, in the militia of the State from which they were
appointed to the regular service, their names to be retained upon the
army list, of course without advancement ; and with the further condi-
tion imposed that in time of war they should, at the pleasure of the
President, and unless incapacitated, be returned to active duty.

Were such an opportunity offered, many officers of the regular
service would take advantage of it not only for the sake of the large
field of useful work thus opened to them, but also for the rapid ad-
vancement that would surely come in the event of war.

In addition to their work as instructors of militia, officers thus
detailed with the State forces would be given charge of the arms and
equipments issued by the government to the States; they would have
the care of the transport and commissariat when the troops were called
out by the State for instruction or for other purposes ; they would have
charge of the supply and distribution of ammunition; in short, they
would be the working-men of the general staff of each State, attached to
those departments which must ever be kept in readiness for an emergency,
and upon whose efficiency the ready mobilization of troops depends.
Such departments require the entire time and attention of at least some
of their officers, and ought not to be intrusted solely to men whose
attention is largely occupied by other affairs, and whose private busi-
ness may at any moment necessitate their absence or make large
demands upon their time.

Camps of instruction for the militia might be formed yearly near
the larger garrisons of regular troops ; or camps of regulars be formed
near those of the militia,—greatly to the advantage of both.

By the association of the regular army and the militia in these and
other ways, the former would be enabled to perform its most valuable
work in peace, and a real national reserve be gradually created ; the
citizen would learn to know and esteem that power which the govern-
ment ever holds in readiness to protect the people, and the regular
officer come to understand the temper and value of the troops he may
some day be called upon to command,

The third future use of the army of the United States should there-
fore be as a model and instructor of the great national reserve, the
organized militia.

Once established upon a firm uniform basis throughout the country,
with organizations permanent and having each its own reserve of veterans
who have served with the colors; with men trained not merely in drill
and target-practice, but in marching and the duties of the soldier in the
field ; with a properly-organized staff, and with well-furnished depots
of supplies, the militia of the United States will form a reserve upon
which the national government may with confidence rely,

532 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

Then shall we cease to be at the mercy of any fifth-rate power that
may choose to attack, and we may assume with more dignity the posi-
tion of arbiter of the American continent than is possible for a nation
powerless to carry its decrees into execution.

The necessity for the employment of a part of the army to guard
the Indians upon their reservations will, of course, remain for many
years to come, though in a lessening degree; but this necessity has
ceased to be the chief reason for the maintenance of an armed force.

The republic wants no standing army for aggressive purposes; but
the maintenance of a small permanent establishment for the three pur-
poses named will ever be a necessity that will grow in importance with
the growth of the nation in wealth, population, and prosperity. Already
the policy of concentrating large bodies of men at important points is
beginning to be felt. Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco,
Denver, and San Antonio all have, or are to have, large garrisons ; and
the day is not far distant when the one-company post, that bugbear
of officers and soldiers, will be a thing of the past. With large gar-
risons will come, to both officers and men, increased opportunities ; and
though the peace army of the United States will ever be small, there is
no reason why it should not be the best-trained and, in proportion to
its size, the most efficient army of the world.

With us the army is a profession, and the officers and soldiers are
such from choice; elsewhere it is in some countries a pastime, in others
a duty enforced by the state. If our regular soldier felt, as he should
be made to feel, that though separated in a degree by his profession
from the citizen, the latter still cared for the soldier’s interest and
honored him, the standard of the enlisted man would be raised, more
native Americans would find their way into the ranks, and the army
cease to be an asylum for helpless foreigners newly landed upon our
shores. If the citizen knew that there was ever at hand a body of
intelligent and highly-trained men whose mere presence secured his
safety at home, and that behind this small force stood a well-organized
reserve ready to protect him against attack from abroad, he would
realize that even in peace the soldier was of service to the state and
useful to his fellow-man, not mere food for powder, and a vagabond
whose welfare was nobody’s concern.

Gro. P, Scriven,
First Ineutenant U.S.A.

CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS.

(Continued from page 416.)

Mrs. Martineau did not believe in any original creation of plots,
simply because she found herself unable to invent one.

But her literary sisters, Mrs. Radcliffe and Mrs. Braddon, would
appear to have labored under fewer limitations, and it is never safe to
measure possibility by our own length of arm.

The credit, however, for the plot of this chronicle does not belong
to us any more than to the sexton belongs the sermon. And yet, as
we shade our eyes and look at the situation, nothing, we flatter ourselves,
could be finer, whether imported or of home production.

Yonder is Mrs. Matherby vanishing in the distance like Medea
with the golden fleece, and here in the foreground is Captain Plussmore
all amazement and asking, as did King George of the apple in the
dumpling, how the deuce it was done.

How indeed did the madam get the ambulance, the horses, the
harness? and, O ye Fates! the linchpins! heavens! yes, the linch-
pins! Perhaps it was the quartermaster in his innocence going to town
on business; perhaps it was the doctor replying to some urgent sum-
mons; and if it was the madam, perhaps at this very moment she is
about to make the major a widower, or, worse, herself a perennial in-
valid with a twisted back or a broken limb.

Now, a man’s leg is an entirely different thing. There they are,
always in plain sight, like the stumps in a clearing or the faults of our
neighbors. And most of them look as though a dislocation would do
little if any damage. But in the other case, such is the wonderful
amplitude and arrangement of dress that the connection between the
foot and the pocket remains a mystery, and appeals to the poetic faculty
like the windings of a forest road, and the thought of injury anywhere
along the line awakens the tenderest susceptibilities.

Hence it was that the imagination of Captain Plussmore suddenly
broke loose, and stolen linchpins, splintered axle-trees, bodily strains,
and fractures of all sorts monopolized the landscape like the ruin and
confusion of Verestchagin’s battle-pictures.

The carriage-road from the fort made a short detour to avoid a

stretch of low wet ground prolonging an arm of the sea. Straight
Vor. I. N.S.—No. 5. 85

534 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

across ran rather a precarious foot-path, due mostly to the dislike of
the soldiers to lose any of their limited time in getting to town. Along
this trail rushed Captain Plussmore, hoping he could intercept the
ambulance at the farther end and forestall a catastrophe of which he
was so unwilling to feel himself the cause.

He was in season, though out of breath. The meeting presented
its difficulties with scant leisure to consider them. The wagon came
rapidly up. The captain waved his hand. The orderly stopped his
team,—and there was the madam herself.

“ Mrs. Matherby,” exclaimed Plussniore ; “ well—I’m afraid—some
mistake—I don’t think E

Just then the wheels nearest him caught his eye, with linchpins all
right and looking as much at home as a bottle of bitters in Bangor.

‘What is the matter, Captain Plussmore,” asked the lady, with
some wonder as well as impatience.

But this was just what that gentleman felt considerable difficulty
in stating, and Mrs. Matherby, prompt at drawing inferences, and, as
usual with prompt inferences, drawing the wrong one, rather peremp-
torily invited the captain to get in and accompany her to town, which
he proceeded to do, no other solution of the trouble presenting itself
to him.

This was a termination of the incident so wholly unexpected that
it left the captain too dazed for conversation. The absurdity of the
thing crept slowly through his consciousness. The madam gave him
time to recover from what seemed the effects of his hurry, and at last he
ventured an inquiry after the probable date of the major’s return and
such other interjectional efforts as his condition permitted.

Here he was, though, he who believed public property to be a
public trust, actually riding beside Mrs. Matherby towards the town
of Blackwater Court-House to do some shopping and to pay some
calls.

The madam could be gracious when she chose; and probably no
grandeur is so great as to utterly crowd compassion out of the female
breast. The visible embarrassment of the captain was in itself a com-
pliment to the majesty of the major’s wife not less valuable because
extorted.

On arrival at the Square, however, the captain begged permission
to withdraw, and secluded himself as soon as possible in the remoter
lanes and by-ways to repair damages and to take in supplies.

‘‘ To all that are upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late,’’

but, unfortunately, before his arrival it is often brought home to us
how we are affiliated to the vegetable and animal kingdoms and how

1889. CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 535

we fail in our life-work, which is to subdue and transform the dead
beets and saurians that link.us to the primeval fire mist.

Even yet on slight provocation dves it happen to man to undergo
a sudden reversion and make himself into more kinds of an ass than
it would be thought possible to bring under one single ulster. Oft in
the stilly night does the memory of such a polygeneric metamorphosis
establish itself upon the pillow and elicit a shudder of disgust.

Captain Plussmore was made of pretty tough material, nor was he
much given to self-examination, which, in fact, is a bad thing for the
physical or moral constitution. In any complicated development like
that of the body or Bible we mainly find what we look for because
there is so much of everything there. It is therefore possible to dis-
cover heart-disease or liver complaint, justification by faith or works ;
but faith is so easy and works are so hard that dogma takes the line
of least resistance and elaborates opinions rather than practice.

If the decalogue had been of human origin, instead of “ Thou shalt
not steal,” it would have merely forbidden that luxury to the Edomite
and the Anakim just as we now appropriate salvation to ourselves and
deny it to the heathen, the unitarian, and the democratic party gen-
erally.

However, there are those whom any examination would fail to floor,
because conducted like the inspection of the Washington aqueduct or
one of those celebrated chemical recitations :

“ What is the color of this compound, Mr. Havens?”

“ Black, sir.”

“ Ah, yes,—that is to say, a little whitish ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ Well, perhaps we might call it quite white ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ But frequently more white than otherwise?”

“ Yes, sir.”

“Tn fact, always snow-white ?”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ Exactly ; very good, Mr. Havens, very good.”

In like manner Captain Plussmore’ was apt to come up smiling
from all his buffetings with fortune. But really this last performance
could furnish the captain very little nutriment for self-esteem. Mrs.
Matherby, as was her wont, held all the honors and made all the tricks.

On his return to, the post Plussmore did not feel like pushing the
transportation business. He easily ascertained how he had been caught
in his own trap, and then a spell of bad weather came to his relief which
kept Mrs. Matherby in-doors. The quartermaster, too, discovered
that the ambulance was in need of repairs, and left it ignominiously
reposing on trestles in front of the blacksmith’s shop.

But.the hardest thing for any man to learn is when to stop. This

536 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

ignorance leads to more dyspepsia, bankruptcy, and bad novels than all
other causes. Even chronicles have run on into the smallest of beer.

It is the high function of reason to forbid in poet, general, or priest
such things as Paradise Regained, Cold Harbor, and afternoon sermons.
But nature ruled by instinct or inertia, having once taken hold, finds
it impossible to let go.

Captain Plussmore, intent on commanding his post, and not satisfied
with his recent excursion in the ambulance, in spite of himself began
to be uneasy about Orderly Snell. In truth, the captain had commenced
operations at the wrong end of the line, slow as he was to see it. With
Snell as her executive officer, Mrs. Matherby was more than a match
for the temporary post-commander.

How, then, to eliminate the orderly was the question, and in much
dubitation thereupon the captain began to lose sleep and appetite. The
simplest method was to relieve Snell and send him to the company.
But this was arbitrary and almost brutal. It indicated an absolute
poverty of resource. The captain prided himself on a good many
things, but on none more than a faculty of management. Being
soldiers, we like to think ourselves strategic and able to make the other
fellow work out our propositions.

Finally he notified the first sergeant to require the attendance of
Private Snell at all drills, the number of which he doubled and
superintended himself.

Snell was duly on hand and circulated round the parade in the old
cycle of movements he had learned fifteen years before.

A man gets through college in four years, learns a trade in three,
and may become a voter in six months or less, but his tactics are like the
Talmud, it seems, and exhaust a lifetime.

One day Snell was missing. He excused himself on the ground
of an errand required by the madam. If she looked upon the soldier
purely as a domestic convenience, the captain thought him a military
machine, and both, for that matter, were wrong.

There may be no such thing as poor whisky in the world, but there
are plenty of poor soldiers, and the poorest of all is he who knows
nothing but drill.. In general a man who does not understand his
own business is a fool, and he who understands nothing but that is a
nuisance, which is the reason why the army regulations forbid our young
officers from going on leave of absence until two years after their de-
parture from the Academy. In about that time, like the usual college
graduate, they become tolerable to mixed society.

Private Snell absenting himself from drill a second time, and for
the same reason as before, was deposited in the guard-house, very much
to his own astonishment and to the captain’s satisfaction, who went
over to the office next morning exceedingly refreshed and feeling that
he was nearly through the wilderness, There it was on the morning

1889, CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 537

report, Private Snell from daily duty to confinement, and nothing that
Walter Scott ever wrote gave the captain more pleasure.

The day was a beautiful one and the ambulance still on the trestles,
so he took no more time than was necessary to clear off his desk and
make ready for a stroll about town. As he passed into the sally-port
Mrs. Matherby called to him from the porch of her quarters, and the
captain walked over.

“T would be much obliged to you,” said she, “if you would stop at
McWhorter’s and tell him to send me up a leg of mutton,—please wait
a moment.” And Mrs. Matherby brought out the order.

The captain took it, saying, with a little hesitation, “ Ah—yes—
certainly.”

The order was duly delivered, and the mutton also, but the captain
fell back upon the earlier events of the morning as more soothing sub-
jects of thought, nor was he inclined to analyze the misgivings that
would thrust themselves into view like dandelions on the lawn. Often
the storm is high above us long before we feel the wind at the door.
Unwelcome questions circle about the consciousness like a hawk over
the barn-yard. The shadows flit back and forth, but we say the swal-
lows are here, or the geese are going north, until finally, plump down
in front of us comes the spoiler, and a chicken is lost to the dinner-
table.

Another beautiful day awaited the captain, and he felt more like
walking than ever. Uneasy minds make restless feet. There was but
one comfortable direction for him to take, but he found himself—and
he hardly knew why—looking over at the madam’s premises. They
were quiet enough. A white curtain fluttered in the window likea flag
of truce.

Something within him suggested the exit on the other side of the
parade, and that determined the captain. Should not a post-commander
go when and where he pleased on his own reservation? Was he to
dodge out and in by side streets like a deserter? And the captain
buttoned his coat to get the support of its friendly pressure, cocked his
hat so as to leave a clear view of the enemy, and started.

But he did not escape Mrs. Matherby. Just as he turned the
corner he heard her voice, sweet but efficient, like a new-year’s punch,—

“Captain Plussmore, I am compelled to trouble you again. Will
you be good enough to leave these orders at the market ?”

The captain said he would, nor did he tear them up by the way,
though he felt like it. And yet he found it difficult to see why he
should be annoyed at doing a neighborly courtesy. “ Yes, that’s it,”
said the captain; “a neighborly courtesy, nothing else.” And he
stepped briskly down the street.

To Adam were brought all things to see what he would call them,
and whatsoever he called them that was the name thereof. The rest of

538 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

us spend a good deal of time in trying to believe that things are what
we call them, only to find that it is but a nom de plume after all, and
has as little to do with the thing itself as roast turkey with Sublime
Porte or misnomer with maiden, The atoms of the new chemistry
have bounds that must be satisfied in combination, even if, like a bache-
lor’s affections, they return upon themselves. So it is with the objects
we strive to name. The name is but a limit to one of the innumerable
lines of connection that bind it on every side to the rest of nature.
Names are many, but the thing is one. Our dictionaries, like our
money, stay this side the grave, and in another world we learn another
language. Celestial apples never can be pommes de terre. Adam started
with the great advantage, according to the record, of being the first
man, and of course had everything his own way.

Just now there are a good many millions of Adams each insisting
that things shall be what he chooses to call them. The tailors of Tooley
Street, it will be recollected, put forth proclamations as “ We, the people
of England,” and in like manner a few clergy annually debate the
propriety of styling themselves “The Church Catholic.” The indi-
vidual is always seeking to identify itself with the infinite. Every
quack insists that his specific is a panacea, every pulpit that it holds
the keys of St. Peter, and every shrine has its fragment of the True
Cross. And the sects that claim Christ as their corner-stone are really
built up on a vowel or a preposition, a hat or a coat, a gesture or an
ablution. Some are clothed with ceremonies like the petticoats of a
Dutch peasant, and others are as naked of the same asa needle. But
they all glory in the name of Christians, and truly are such in spite of
themselves, linked in divers ways to the communion of saints in the
true church founded on the gospel of sacrifice,—no longer of cattle but
of self. Self is the true devil and hell needs no other.

There is a heaven-wide difference, however, between selfhood and
selfishness, as there is between a ripe and a rotten orange, Dead Sea fruit
and the dates of Damascus, Cesar Borgia and St. Francis, , The work
given us to do is to establish the one freed from the other; refining the
instincts of our animal ancestry into capacities for the life angelic.

In spite of the captain’s determination to regard himself as the
politest of neighbors, he was beginning to fear that it would not take
a very deep scratch to reveal instead the poorest of orderlies.

Again the day was beautiful and the sky that deep blue that looks
so like a solid limit to the heavens, and which the old Elohist did well
to call “the firmament.” A lighter tint of the same color pervaded
the reflections of Captain Plussmore, who was almost afraid of asking
himself whether there was any escape from the dilemma of becoming
a runner for Mrs. Matherby, or of confining his perambulations to the
interior of the post, his command of which was getting to be less of
a boon than a burden.

1889. CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 539

The captain fairly envied the unalloyed security of Private Snell,
who, still in durance vile but peaceful, was taking his time at white-
washing the company kitchen. Nothing gets to be more appalling
even to the most careless of people than the certain knowledge that a
disagreeable duty is waiting without fail day after day to demand dis-
charge. Tired with the recurrence of dressing and undressing night
and morning, men have committed suicide and women, worn out with
the eternal monotony of dust-pan, kettle, and lamp; lamp, dust-pan,
and kettle, have joyfully gone into lunatic asylums or plunged head-
long out of the attic. One can visit a dentist with some comfort, for
he sees the light of future relief breaking through present tribulation.
But suppose the supply of teeth was unlimited, or that they were
always reproduced, like lizards’ tails, and with no escape from the
doom of having one pulled daily at noon forever and ever! This
hardly more than describes the predicament of the present commander
of Fort Fairfax, but he continued to breast his fate as unflinchingly as
the Confederate generals at the battle of Franklin.

By the way, it was a scheme based upon something like the sup-
position above made that one of the early English Henrys put in force
upon the dental equipment of his Jewish subjects. The royal drafts
were promptly honored and the treasury was filled to overflowing with
honest gold. Such a system of revenue has the great merit of sim-
plicity, and we commend it to the new administration. Conservative
doubts as to its efficacy might be tested by making a preliminary trial
on the Committee of Appropriations. Once adopted, the financial
secretary would need nothing but a biceps, a bench, and a pair of
pincers, and there would be no further trouble with income-tax or
tariff.

An amendment to the Constitution affirming the Anglo-Israel
theory as applicable throughout the United States, with no abridg-
ment by reason of color, salary, or skepticism, would do away with
any objection from a local or sectarian point of view.

Once more, then, refusing to recognize any restrictions upon his
freedom, the captain, on what had got to be Friday forenoon, made for
the sally-port and gained it safely. Midway he paused, disdaining
even to seem to fly, and still he heard nothing but the whir of the
sewing-machine where presumably the madam was busy with summer
calicoes, and Plussmore muttered a prayer for the repose of the soul of
Elias Howe.

Thus to dally on the ragged edge of danger always has its fascina-
tions. The captain looked back, then out along the walk, and still

‘The world was all before him where to choose his place of rest,’’

and he passed on—“ shut up in measureless content”—to run straight
into the presence of Mrs. Matherby, who stood by the window that

540 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

opened on the street and remarked, “ Captain, will you kindly take my
orders into town? I have them ready.”

Plussmore touched his hat mechanically, but could not afterwards
recollect that he said anything. He found the orders in his possession
when he came to himself, and divided them among butchers, pastry-
shops, and grocers without wasting time to verify place or article.

Then he stood on the corner lost in thought, like Socrates. Was
there never going to be an end to this sort of thing? Would it be
necessary for him to cut a private door-way through the boundary-wall
of the reservation? Should he be compelled to take a leave of absence
in order to elude the duties imposed upon him by Mrs. Matherby ?

Finally he went over the way to a peanut-stand and bought three
cents’ worth, just like any other orderly. Then he made amends to
himself and endeavored to re-establish his status as commanding officer
by turning into a cigar store and calling for a “ Henry Clay,” at a
quarter each, even in those days. But the “ Henry Clay” had no flavor
any more than cigars generally to a man at sea. In his case it was not
the dampness nor the salt. No leaf of the Vuelta Abajo or the Con-
necticut Valley will keep its taste in the mouth of one to whom the
day brings nothing but defeat and the morrow no promise of recovery.
And Plussmore on his return to the post sat down to a dinner that
deepened his disgust.

To the corporal’s wife who presided over the kitchen mysteries the
captain had once been thoughtless enough to admit a fondness for
stewed beef and tomatoes, with the consequence that whenever she was
in doubt, and she was seldom out of it, she played that trump and fed
the captain on his favorite dish until he would have welcomed salt
horse and hard-tack for a change.

“ Here, take this away and bring me the cheese,” said he, for the
captain’s supply-list rather suggested that celebrated meal where the
lieutenant, having declared that he never eat rice, was blandly invited
by his host to help himself to the mustard as the only other eatable on
the board. %

That evening the first sergeant reported to Plussmore that Private
Snell had finished the company kitchen, and asked if he should be
released.

“Yes,” replied the captain, and let events take their course.

Snell thereupon resumed his duties as orderly, not, it is true, by
Plussmore’s direction, but because he failed to further interfere. The
captain was considerably down in the mouth before dinner, and the
cheese finished the business, just as the great emperor, through an indi-
gestion, lost Waterloo. To the surprise of the post-commander, he
slept more soundly that night than at any time since the departure of
Major Matherby. A decision, if achieved by ourselves, brings in its
train a swarm of doubts and regrets like the trail of a comet, but if it

1889.. CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 541

is thrust upon us no alternative remains, and the vexed soul finds
rest.
Matters were at this stage when Orderly Snell presented himself at
Captain Plussmore’s quarters with a note bearing the Matherby arms
and an invitation to tea. The fact had best be stated as briefly as pos-
sible, unexpected and abnormal as it may appear. We must stick to
the truth in our narrative, but our impression is that Mrs. Matherby
knew what she was about better even than Metternich. The captain,
however, expressed his astonishment in a manner graphically to be
described “in semi-lunar fardels,” which may stand for a doctor of
divinity or for a succession of adjectives that such gentlemen are too
conscientious ever to apply to themselves. But it must be confessed
the note arrived at a favorable time. The captain was just now quite
busy with the speculation whether in justice to himself he could much
longer submit to the culinary experiments of Mrs. Corporal Kilkenny,
who seemed to be as ingenious in the ruin of soup, sauce, and steak as
Soyer was in their enrichment. One does not need to be an epicure to
feel the difference between plain food and spoiled food.

“Tea at Mrs. Matherby’s,” ejaculated the captain again and again.
“T should as soon have thought of dining with—with—the commissary-
general.” Plussmore never went outside the regular channel, whether
for clothing or comparisons.

But tea with Alderney cream, out of ancestral blue china, with a
strong skirmish-line of biscuit, muffin, and rusk, a main body of lamb
chops, sliced Westphalia, and oyster scallops, a reserve of cocoanut cake,
orange custard, and apple fritters, supported by baked quinces and pear
with ice and jelly on the flanks,—was it really worth while to let all
this go and sit down to a litter of pantry sweepings that would have
made a Trappist voluble?

Captain Plussmore sent over to the office for a quill, whittled out a
new pen, and set himself to the polite enlargement of “ Declined with
thanks,”

Many years ago we called upon a friend of ours and found him
in a decidedly reflective mood. As he appeared more hospitably in-
clined to his own: thoughts than to ourselves, we picked up our hat
and stick, but the major begged us to stay, mixed a fresh tumbler, and
observed it had been a very solemn evening.

“‘T have just received,” said he, “a letter from my principal sweet-
heart. In it she writes that she has for some time back noticed a
tendency to drink on my part which has caused her serious misgivings.
Having with great reluctance spoken of it on several occasions, and
finding that the fault was growing into a habit, with every probability
of future unhappiness to us both, she has made up her mind that it is
better to break off our acquaintance, exchange our letters, and thus be left
at liberty to contract such other relations as may promise better things.”

542 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

Here the major felt in his pockets, for his handkerchief apparently,
but pulled out a fresh cigar, which he lit, and went on to state that he
had treated the matter from a purely official point of view. His reply
was endorsed upon the back of the lady’s letter to bring the whole
transaction into as compact a state as possible, and read as follows:
“Receipt acknowledged, facts admitted, inferences denied, conclusion
accepted. Truly yours, John C. Pipes.”

We hinted that he might have done better still by adopting the
customary formula, “ Respectfully returned, approved,” but the major,
with that delicacy that was his great feature, demurred, saying that
something was due to the lady’s feelings. So there was, and it would
seem to be due still.

Ah, well, let us be candid rather than clever. Honesty is the best
policy,—when the paper is not negotiable. The facts are that a short
time ago Mrs. Pipes made the major and ourselves a bowl of eggnog,
and we were sorely tempted totell this very story. But if there is
one bore more abominable than another, it is a man who cannot keep
his good things to himself. Cleanliness may be the second virtue,
reticence is certainly the third. And this reminds us of a brief cor-
respondence of more recent times. Colonel Kilograph appealed to
division head-quarters for authority to hire a clerk, and deployed his
reasons through several sheets of foolscap, winding up with, “I do
not see how I can get along without him.” ‘The general commanding
turned the document over and endorsed it, ‘‘ Write shorter letters and
fewer of them ;” in which shape it was returned to the colonel, who
considers that there has been a lack of courtesy somewhere.

Captain Plussmore’s reply was hardly as concentrated as the ex-
amples quoted. But it was soon signed, sealed, and not delivered.
He kept his note overnight, just as Major Pipes had done, and gained
a supper thereby as the major gained a wife.

This is a test to which all epistolary efforts should be subjected,
and is generally a half-way house to the waste-basket. Hasten to
write the letter while the feelings are hot. Take plenty of ink and
paper and don’t stop to sift or examine. Get everything down that
comes along. Then lay it aside and goto bed. You will sleep soundly,
satisfied with yourself and pleased to think how creditable a perform-
ance is ready for the early mail. But after breakfast you will tear it
up and write another much shorter, much clearer, and much more
agreeable, just as Captain Plussmore next morning deliberately put his
first note into the fire, sent an acceptance, and proceeded to look over
his wardrobe.

It is difficult to dissect our impulses, but as near as we can make
it out the master-feeling with the captain at first was mistrust of the
Greeks, dona ferentes. Then by degrees there insinuated itself an ap-
prehension that possibly he might be afraid of Mrs. Matherby, and

1889. CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 543

out of this grew a resolve to beard the Douglas in her den. After all,
not far in the background of every exertion there flutters a bill of fare, .
like the national ensign over foreign seas, with its promise of comfort
and satisfaction.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the gridiron beats
them both. Time was when the grinders ceased because there were
few, but the dentist has changed all that, and now guarantees us teeth
and tenderloin clear up to the waters of Jordan, and farther, for that
matter, if there were need. Not the smallest of its contributions to
our peace, however, is the absence of cooks beyond that flood.

The captain did not feel so much out of place at Mrs. Matherby’s
tea-table as he expected. It is somewhere laid down that a conscious-
ness of being well dressed is as necessary as the thirty-nine articles to
a woman’s peace of mind, and it has a buoyant tendency with the
other sex. Between the two extremes of “ perpetual astonishment at
his own respectability,” which is inseparably connected with a suit of
Sunday clothes and the daily cravats of Beau Brummell, of which
only the tenth was permitted to be a success, there is a wide margin of
choice, and Captain Plussmore was inclined to be somewhat particular
about measures and creases around the waist and shoulder, which may
readily be pardoned in a man who promptly pays his tailor.

Lieutenant Rosebank had also been invited, and one’s self-esteem
always gets a little fillip from the company of juniors in rank. The
presence of a subaltern on parade has been known to save his superiors
from disagreeable accidents. Where one has nothing else to fall back
upon, an earlier commission is a very convenient resource.

The secret of Mrs. Matherby’s hospitality was now to some extent
declared.. The two officers were introduced to her nieces, just arrived,
Miss Ethel and Miss Thalia Broadwater-York, of Accomac Court-
House.

This family will be recognized as undoubtedly the oldest in Vir-
ginia, and its mention does away with any necessity for details as to
character and appearance. The cultivation and disposal of tobacco and
Senegambians, ever since the days of James the First naturally insured
to each generation an increasing stock of refinement and grace that had
now culminated at compound interest in these girls to such an extent that
Lieutenant Rosebank, before tattoo, was madly in love with Miss Thalia,
who happened to be nearest him. True, he had not been away from
the Academy long enough to tell cotton from poplin, articles into the
composition of which the chemical course does not extend, though they
have much more to do with the comfort of military men than such
things as blow-pipes and litmus-paper. .

The earliest dangers the graduate has to face are so connected with
finance and fiancée that to meet them successfully it would be better to
furnish the walls of the recitation-room with sample slips and prices of

544 THE UNITED SERVICE. May

dress-goods rather than the reactions of salt and acid, which possess no
living interest for anybody but invalids and apothecaries.

Nor did the lieutenant’s experience yet include enough of a base-
line to get the advantage of parallax in his observations of the bright
particular stars that shine in subaltern skies and to determine if the
orbits in which they swing would be most likely to circle round steady
and determinate centres or wander off into all sorts of wild parabolas.
By the way, if the prohibition folks would only tax a license to re-
marry as high as they do a license to sell rum, the man-that-waits-
around-the-corner would get tired and go back to the original edition
instead of hankering after a copy de luxe.

But we must leave this couple to themselves. Mrs. Matherby is
on guard, and is not likely to allow any detrimental complications,
even if Miss Thalia had any delusions about life on an income of two
dollars per day. The ladies of that family knew the worth of bread
and bonnets, and had no great confidence in that economical calcula-
tion which makes the portion of one a. plenty for two, but omits a
fee for the waiter. The market, however, does furnish certain liquids
that have a special mathematics, as the old admiral knew when he laid
down the axiom that one drink was enough, two were too many, and
three not half enough.

Captain Plussmore did not pretend to be indifferent to female soci-
ety. Nobody does until it is refused them. But with him falling in
love was like dipping a candle,—it took a good many immersions to
complete the process. And he had learned that sunshine is a wonder-
ful magician. If you would tell mica from gold, you must look at them
in shadow.

“It seems as though we must have met before,” said Miss Ethel.
“T have heard my aunt speak of you so often.”

“ Always to my advantage, of course.”

“Well, I came away in a hurry and forgot to bring my compli-
ments with me.”

“You will have no trouble ‘n getting them anywhere.”

“ Ah! what is so common is hardly worth getting.”

Mrs. Matherby here came to the captain’s rescue with the informa-
tion that the major did not expect to return for quite a while. He had
been detailed to another court,—‘“a serious case,—Colonel Schnapps,
you know—the old trouble.”

Captain Plussmore. said he was very sorry to hear it. Strange
things, he thought, had already happened in the major’s absence, and
what other surprises might be in store was a difficult question. Miss
Ethel began to inquire about the officers at Carter Barracks, and dia-
logue became easy as a mere interchange of personal reminiscence.
Conversational small change is seldom scrutinized, and counterfeits
pass readily. What on these occasions is needed is, in fact, a seaman-

1889. CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 545

like way of splicing remarks so that the run off the reel is tolerably
continuous. If the general effect is something like a crazy quilt, it
nevertheless serves for a cover behind which time can be badly pep-
pered if not killed. In the wish to be disagreeable success is never
very difficult, but in the wish to please the load is often so heavy that
the gun kicks and scatters dreadfully.

By the time the evening was over, notwithstanding scallop and
custard, Captain Plussmore was tired and took to his pipe with a zest
to which he had long been a stranger. In summing up the day’s
history it became tolerably certain that so far as Mrs. Matherby was
concerned the captain had passed from a belligerent attitude to a state
of unstable equilibrium due to the new attractions introduced into the
problem by that astute lady. In sudden emergencies she was capable
of heroic measures, but it is only the savage who prefers massacre to
management. No woman ever loses her fondness for sugar-plums, or
escapes entirely from the instinct to please. And caramels belong to
a higher stage of civilization than the knout, if the reform rather than
the ruin of the criminal is to be sought.

That there may be no anxiety as to Lieutenant Rosebank, we may
say he asks nothing at our hands but to be left with his memories and
his hopes. But the captain was not quite so susceptible to charming
eyes and charlotte russe. And when he came over to the office next
morning Satan came also. For the sergeant was there to report that
Orderly Snell had been absent from drill.

“Very well, sergeant, I will look into the matter,” said Plussmore.
He really did not feel like committing himself, and the difference be-
tween looking into and overlooking is not great. But while he was
slowly adjusting himself to wider views of the usefulness of the
orderly, the stableman appeared with the statement that Mrs. Matherby
had sent over for the ambulance.

The turning-points in our career are frequently as imperceptible
as the Spanish sunshine in club sherry. There is an accidental jostle
between two strangers passing one another on the street. The young
man bows, the girl smiles, and a word, a glance, and a moment’s
curiosity complete the incident. Or, perhaps it creates an eddy in the
flow of events, where the thoughts circle round and round until finally
pursuit follows inquiry and ends in billet-doux and orange-blossoms.
“The parting of the ways” could be the title of one of the most inter-
esting speculations that history affords. Had Bucephalus been less
of an ox and more of a broncho, or had the bark that carried Cesar
gone down like the Armada that Philip gathered; had the Stuart
Prince Henry lived to be king, or had the postmaster Drouet been a
trifle near-sighted ; had the young Wellington gone into the Customs,
a berth in which was refused him on the ground of incompetency ; or
had Napoleon gathered headway enough from his “ History of Corsica”

546 THE UNITED SERVICE, May

for a literary life, or, as both deserter and rebel, disappeared under the
guillotine; had Byron been longer spared, or Luther sooner taken, our
geographies would have worn an altogether different complexion.

Neither would this chronicle have existed but for Mrs. Matherby,
nor is she a person to be kept waiting. Captain Plussmore’s response
to the stableman was prompt and to the purpose,—“ Give my compli-
ments to the post-quartermaster, and say that, if the ambulance is not
needed for public business, he can place it at the disposal of Mrs.
Matherby.”

The post-quartermaster, however, was not allowed any share in the
transaction. Long before he received this message the madam was
well on her way to town, the practical stableman understanding that
where that lady was concerned business came first and compliments
afterwards.

The lesson taught by this performance, so far as it has any, is that
if in the evening you accept your neighbor’s cake and champagne you
cannot feed him with negatives the next morning. It is not a fair
exchange. In acknowledgment of such tangible material eomforts you
cannot return high moral considerations. Metaphysics and Verzenay
may both be dry, but they are not to be equated.

Now Captain Plussmore had not entirely surrendered his original
position. He had been educated, lifted into the command of broader
horizons, like Mr. Gladstone, who started as a Tory, or like Mr. Cal-
houn, who once believed in a tariff, that idol of the market-place,
which still enjoys its:stolen revenue on which the manufacturers grow
fat as did the priests on the sacrifices that were offered to the great god
Bel. Since steam is abroad it does not make so much difference about
the school-master. The locomotive does far better service than even
Dr. Keate. And stage-coach beliefs must necessarily be very unlike
parlor-car beliefs. :

But Captain Plussmore is still leaning on his spear. There is a lull
in the combat while he looks about to gain a little time and breath. In
most every emergency a military man sooner or later issues an order
just as a doctor does a prescription, or just as a bishop quotes the
Fathers. It is the outward and visible sign of a responsibility met
and discharged. But an order that would secure satisfaction for the past
and security for the future in the matters at issue between the captain
and Mrs. Matherby was not to be done by a dash of the pen. Pluss-
more was desirous to so cover the whole ground as to leave no room
for evasion or misunderstanding. In other words, he was to be vic-
torious where no apostle succeeded and where all the lawyers have
failed. So far most of his hits had been misses, but he proposed to
become a marksman on the modern principle of keeping at it until
ammunition and possibilities are both exhausted.

The captain worked away at his task, letting things drift for a day

1889. CHRONICLES OF CARTER BARRACKS. 547

or two. Finally he got the subject into a form to suit him. It had
been revised and rewritten as often as one of Tennyson’s verses, but if
melody be gained by this process, clearness is seldom secured. The
first effort holds most of the original intention, and the farther you go
from the spring the dirtier the stream.

We have not time to transcribe this order of the captain’s. In its
preliminary paragraph he withdrew the ambulance from circulation. So
much was due to the regulations and to himself. But nothing more
efficiently instructs you in the propriety of your neighbor’s methods
than undertaking to do your neighbor’s work. So, in a subsequent
paragraph the ambulance was made current again in the form of a
market-wagon, just as the coined dollar shut up in the granite vaults of
Washington reappears in society as a silver certificate.

The market-wagon was permitted to travel back and forth from
post to town as the necessities of the garrison might require. Instead of
being a special monopoly, it was to become a general convenience. All
this until such time as an actual market-wagon should be obtained on
representation to be immediately made to the proper authorities.

All minor details were anticipated and provided for with as much
nicety as the classical drama gave to the unities or the prince regent to
his bow.

For instance, any requests for transportation outside of the regular
trips formally laid down in the schedule were to be submitted to the
post-quartermaster, who was to forward them with his recommendation
to the post-commander, whose approval, returned through the same
channel and ultimately received at the stables, authorized the use of the
specified team complete.

This will be recognized as the method so dear to the official mind
by which a September requisition for stoves secures their arrival in the
course of the following July.

So Captain Plussmore, having completed his work and given it the
last finishing touches, walked over to the office one morning with a fair
copy to have it duly promulgated to the command and entered on the
order-book. ;

There, as he opened the door, seated at the desk and evidently just
arrived, he met face to face Mason MATHERBY HIMSELF.

H. W. C.
(To be continued.)

THE UNITED SERVICE.

SERVICE SALAD.

Readers of ‘‘ The United Service’’ are
cordially invited to contribute to this de-
partment items of either fact or fancy,
grave or gay, instructive or only enter-
taining ; in short, any literary flotsam and
jetsam likely to interest our subscribers.

WE regret tostate that Captain Charles
King has been for the past two weeks
quite ill in New York City. He is now
thought to be convalescent, but his illness
has prevented his furnishing for this
number of THE UNITED SERVICE the
usual chapter of his delightful “ Trials
of Staff-Officers”’ serial. We are quite

sure that our readers cordially unite with
the editor in wishing Captain King, a

speedy restoration to health.

The Defense of Canada.
(From Colburn’s United Service Maga-
zine. )

Ir would be foreign to the object of
this article to discuss the probability of
Canada being involved in a war with
the United States; a contingency to be
earnestly deprecated by the inhabitants
of both countries. Still it must be con-
ceded that such a misfortune is at least
possible, and that providing against it
will render it less, and not more, probable.
If war were declared while our empire
was free from any hostile complications,
the defensive forces of Canada might be
largely and quickly reinforced by the
imperial army. But if, on the contrary,
circumstances led to a war between the
two great English-speaking powers while
we were engaged in an European war,
or had undertaken extensive operations
in Asia or Africa, Canada would be al-
most entirely dependent on her own un-
aided resources.

The population of Canada is at present

a little over five millions, spread over a
relatively narrow strip of country three
thousand seven hundred miles in length,
measuring by the through railway line
from Halifax on the east coast to Van-
couver on the west coast. T'wo-thirds
of this population live in the eastern third
of Canada, which contains nearly all the
wealth and the commercial centres. It
comprises the provinces of Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario.
Passing westward from this eastern third,
after a long stretch of valueless land,
north of the great American lakes, we
come to the fertile agricultural province
of Manitoba, and the wheat-growing
prairies to its immediate west. Then,
still passing westward, we come to an-
other long stretch of barren or rather
pasture land, on the eastern slopes of
the Rocky Mountains, and on the western
slopes we come to the maritime and agri-
cultural province of British Columbia.
The four eastern provinces are the
great centres of manufacture and com-
merce, besides being largely agricultural.
Montreal is the commercial metropolis,
with Toronto next in importance. Ot-
tawa is purely a political capital. Quebec
is only a shipping port, and Kingston,
at the head of the St. Lawrence, a trans-
shipping port for grain, chiefly coming
from the upperend of the lakes. Halifax
is a most important naval station,—in
fact, of vital importance in case of war.
The populated part of Canada is only
a relatively narrow strip contiguous to
the frontier, and all the chief towns,
except Ottawa, eighty miles north of
Kingston, are either on the frontier or
within three or four days’ march of it.
The chief railways accordingly run more
or less parallel to the frontier, and quite
close to it. They are managed by some
of the ablest railway engineers of the
day, and perhaps Mr. Van Horne, the
manager of the Canadian Pacific Rail-

1889.

way, has no superior for ordinary man-
agement, or for the transport of troops
and material in war, having gained his
experience in the American Civil War.

But the long Canadian railway lines
are only single lines, and hence have a
very limited carrying power.

The Canadian militia consists of some
ninety-six battalions of infantry, with
about a dozen independent companies,
eight regiments of cavalry, with about
nine independent troops, twenty-one bat-
teries of field-artillery, a company of
mounted infantry, a mountain battery,
three companies of engineers, and about
forty garrison batteries in the sea and
lake coasts and frontier towns.

The city corps of infantry and garrison
artillery are undoubtedly the best, and
are trained in parts throughout the year.
But the country corps, and cavalry and
field-artillery, are only trained every
second year, when they go into camp
for twelve days nominally ; but as this
period includes the days of joining and
breaking up, a Sunday, a day on guard,
a day at the butts, and a march round
to show themselves off, it leaves but six
days for actual drill. Eighteen thousand
men are supposed to be trained each
year. More than two-thirds of these
are raw recruits, and but few ever come
out for two years. Consequently the
training received by the Canadian militia
(or rather volunteers, as the militia bal-
lot is never put in force) is of the most
meagre description, though it is won-
derful what is done in those few days.

The city corps generally are better
than the country corps, and can be com-
pared as a whole with the average of our
volunteer corps at home. But they are
the minority.

In the Canadian militia we have a
mass of men ill-trained at maneuvring
or in the use of arms; totally devoid of
discipline in an European sense ; without
any equipment; without transport, com-
missariat, or other supply departments ;
armed with the Snider rifle and obsolete
artillery. No worse picture can be drawn
of the state of the material of the Cana-
dian militia than that described by an
anonymous but wonderfully well in-
formed writer, ‘‘ Linchpin,” in the Cana-
dian Militia Gazette during 1887-88.

Vou. I. N. S.—No., 5.

SERVICE SALAD.

86

549

But, with all their defects, Canadian
troops have a discipline of their own,
based principally on anxiety to do the
right thing, if they only knew what the
right thing is. And herein lies the key
to their inefficiency, which was so pain-
fully evident, according to all accounts,
in the North-west Rebellion.

That campaign, so admirably designed
and rapidly executed that the Germans
thought it worth while to send an officer
out to Canada to study the details on
the spot, was greatly endangered by the
ignorance of the officers and troops as
to what was expected of them. Lieu-
tenant-General Sir F. Middleton had to
manage every detail himself, and was
overwhelmed with work; while a mul-
titude of aspiring Napoleons, full of that
dangerous thing,—a little knowledge,—
were writing to the papers that every-
thing was wrong; that the strategy was
bad, etc., and devising counter schemes,
and disturbing the public mind. How
well the campaign was devised was shown
by the rebel collapse after one fight on a
relatively large scale.

In judging of the supply arrangements
in this campaign we must consider the
circumstances. The main field force was
a small one (eleven hundred men). The
total strength of the three marching
columns was two thousand five hundred
men, and there were an equal number
stationary ; but the lines of communica-
tion from the three bases on the Canadian
Pacific Railway were about two hundred
and ten mileseach. Theselines, however,
were never attacked. The half-breeds
were not numerous, but a great number
of Indians were ready to rise at their
first serious success, and two small flying
columns, besides General Middleton’s,
were required to intimidate them. The
supply of these columns was carried by
contract with the Hudson Bay Company
The feeding of the troops during their
movement along the north shore of Lake
Superior was effected by the camps of
the Canadian Pacific Railway workmen
then employed in constructing the line.
Consequently, as the troops engaged were
few in number, and were fed by civil
contractors, we cannot draw any conclu-
sions as to the capacity of the Canadian
military authorities for organizing and

550

supplying trains for the large force that
would be assembled for the defense of
Canada against an invasion from the
South. We must remember that Canada
has no trained staff-officers for the work ;
and probably there are but one or two
men in Canada, besides General Mid-
dleton, who realizes the dimensions of
the work it would involve,—a work, the
parts of which are delicately hung to-
gether, and requiring fine and experi-
enced handling for its efficiency.

With regard to the fighting qualities
of the Canadian soldiers, there is no
reason to doubt that, when properly led
by their officers, they would show the
magnificent qualities already shown by
the Anglo-Saxon and Gallic races on the
European and American battle-fields.
But in the North-west Rebellion the fine
men sent into the field were badly led,
except at Batoche, when, with a fine
charge with the bayonet, the rebels were
put to flight. In all the other fights
victory cannot be claimed by the Do-
minion troops. The results were rather
repulses than defeats, although in some
cases the bands of discipline were so far
relaxed that the men retreated as soldiers
should not do. But the real cause was
the ignorance of the subordinate officers,
and the want of reliance on them felt
by their men; an ignorance for which
they are not to be blamed, for under the
present system there is no way for them
to be adequately enlightened. But the
fact remains.

The only men who really did anything
towards leading men in the fighting in
the North-west Rebellion were those
who had been in the Imperial service.
But to prove that Canadians can do well
if well led, the story of the capture of
Batoche may be recounted. The rebel
position, four thousand yards in length,
stretched across a bend of a river, so that
the river was in rear of it and formed a
point d’appui for each flank. The posi-
tion was well intrenched by rifle-pits,
from which the rebels kept up an inces-
sant fire. Their commander asserted
that he had only one hundred and forty
men in the position, with others on
the opposite bank of the river at the
end of the position nearest General Mid-

dleton’scamp. General Middleton, with |

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

his ill-trained force of seven hundred
men, advanced on Batoche on the 9th
of May, 1885, and encamped in front of
the enemy’s right. He spent the next
three days in offensive reconnoissances,
or rather offensive outposts (if we can
use such a term), ordering the men who
made these reconnoissances to carry only
thirty rounds to prevent a recurrence of
an excessive waste of ammunition as on
the first day. On the third day (May
12) General Middleton proceeded with
one hundred and fifty men and one gun
to reconnoitre the centre of the enemy’s
position, leaving that gallant old veteran
of India and China, Colonel Van Strau-
benzie, with orders to leave camp with
three hundred men when he heard firing,
to take up the position of the previous
day, and to go even farther if oppor-
tunity offered. There was nothing said
about taking Batoche, and the men had
only the thirty rounds authorized for
outpost work, while General Middleton
left camp to make a reconnoissance.
While carrying out this order, a scout
brought Straubenzie a verbal message to
stop, which he ordered to be taken down
in writing. It seems that this order did
not originate from General Middleton,
for when he returned to camp he was
greatly annoyed at finding that his orig-
inal orders had not been carried out.
Straubenzie offered to carry them out at
once, when the men had finished their
dinners. This General Middleton as-
sented to, and Colonel Straubenzie left
camp with his three hundred men, and
extended them. He soon found, how-
ever, that he would not be able to reach
the position occupied oh the previous day
without a rush or charge, for the men
were getting more and more disinclined
to go under fire for apparently no par-
ticular purpose. So Colonel Straubenzie
walked unconcernedly up and down the
line and spoke to the men lying down
under cover, or to their officers, saying
what he was going to do, after which he
gave the command to ‘ charge,” which
was responded to withacheer. It was
the first charge of the campaign, and it
brought a new life into the men; and
the next news that General Middleton
received in camp was that Batoche was
taken, with many rebel prisoners. The

1889.

men, when once properly led, responded
splendidly. The losses that occurred
were not chiefly due to the fire of the
rebels actually charged, but from the
flank and reverse fire. of those on the
farther bank of the river. It is not the
fault of the Canadian militia that they
do not understand the spirit of modern
battle; they have no means of learning
it; they have no regulars among them
to learn it from.

To add to the difficulties of the defense
of Canada, the population is formed of
two distinct nationalities,—the Anglo-
Saxon and the French, the latter in-
tensely Roman Catholic, and bent on
keeping upa race feeling and repudiating
all connection with their fellow-Cana-
dians of other blood. The general idea
is that the French Canadians did not do
their best in the North-west Rebellion ;
and we must remark that the half-breeds
had an immense body of sympathizers
among the French Canadians simply and
purely because of race feeling, the half-
breeds being of French and Indian de-
scent.

Again, in the Dominion, there are but
too many who favor political connection
with America, which cannot but affect
the question of the defense of Canada.

Turning now to the American side of
the question, we find a nation, numbering
at present about sixty millions, who, in
the Civil War ending in 1865, put three
million men in the field, when their
population was smaller, and since those
days railways have enormously multi-
plied.

The Americans maintain a standing
army of thirty-seven thousand men, and
have, besides these, a militia system
somewhat analogous to that of Canada,
but far more numerous and complete.
They have, besides, large arsenals, gun-,
sword-, and rifle-factories, gunpowder
manufactories, etc., which Canada does
not possess,! and by which they can arm
an overwhelming force.

Let us for the moment assume that
Canada could put in the field one hun-
dred and fifty thousand men, which, with,
say, one hundred thousand troops from

1 Except the Hamilton Powder Company and the
Quebec Ammunition Factory.

SERVICE SALAD.

551

England, would make a total of two
hundred and fifty thousand men. The
frontier to be defended is a long one,
though it would only include the four
eastern provinces. It would be hopeless
to attempt the defense of the country
west of the great lakes. Unless we gave
up the rich Niagara district, it would
require at least forty thousand men.
Montreal, the most exposed town, would
require fifty thousand men. Kingston,
the key of the lake defense, is also on
the west flank of Montreal, besides cover-
ing Ottawa, and must have at least twenty
thousand men. Quebec would require
ten thousand men ; and Prescott, Halifax,
and Vancouver the same number each.
Kingston and Prescott, it must be re-
membered, are important points, as they
directly cover Ottawa, the seat of gov-
ernment, and Halifax and Vancouver
are naval stations of the greatest impor-
tance in a war against the United States.
Kingston also protects the Rideau canal
leading to Ottawa, and is the terminus
of a railway line running north towards
Ottawa.

We will suppose that these garrisons
are taken from the Canadian militia.
Then this leaves only the troops that
might be sent from England to take the
field.

The above numbers are not at all ex-
aggerated, for in the well-known defen-
sive scheme drawn up in 1864 by a well-
known and capable English officer, sent
out to Canada for the purpose, it was
considered that even when the Toronto
district was prepared with field defenses,
it should have fifty thousand men; and
that Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec,
with extensive permanent fortifications,
should have, respectively, twenty thou-
sand, thirty thousand, and seven thousand
men, while Ottawa was to have three
thousand. Thus, this scheme provides
for sixty thousand men for the defense
of the Ottawa-Quebec-Montreal-Kings-
ton district, in conjunction with perma-
nent fortifications and a field force of
thirty thousand men : total, one hundred
and forty thousand men. This was rec-
ommended in the days when the com-
munications leading to Canada were very
poor to what they now are; when we did
not know how the Americans could fight,

552

or what armies they could raise, although
it was more than recognized that Canada
could scarcely be expected to muster a
force at the outbreak of hostilities capable
of withstanding in the open field that
which the Americans could bring up.

The scheme of 1864 required a defen-
sive force of one hundred and ten thou-
sand men, with fortifications, exclusive
of Halifax and Vancouver. The scheme
in this paper supposes a defensive force
of one hundred and thirty thousand men,
with no fortifications to speak of, also
exclusive of Halifax and Vancouver, a
difference which errs by being too small,
so that the numbers given are by no
means excessive, while the garrisons as-
sumed for Halifax and Vancouver are
far too small. From their importance
they should have thirty thousand men
each, to stand a long siege.

The distances of the vital points in the
United States from the frontier, and the
immense difference between the number
of troops that could be assembled and
maintained on American and Canadian
soils, would force the British troops into
a strategical defensive attitude. Where
would they be posted in Canada for this
purpose ?

With regard to this point, we must
remark that from the railways skirting
the frontier the troops will have to be
somewhere near that frontier, while the
long single railway lines parallel to the
frontier are by no means a rapid, or safe,
or certain means of transporting troops
from point to point. The American
troops, it should be remembered, have
proved their capacity for rapid and far-
reaching raids, destroying railways, etc.
The two capitals of the Dominion being
Ottawa and Montreal, it is evident that
the defense will be mostly limited to the
area between Kingston and Quebec,—that
is, along the line of the St. Lawrence.
There is another reason for this, viz.,
that England, having presumably the
command of the sea, will be able to
maintain communication with Quebec,
and a line of railway lines along the
north shore of the St. Lawrence to Mon-
treal, and is more or less protected by it.
Toronto, three hundred and thirty-three
miles west of Montreal (or one hundred
and sixty miles west of Kingston), and

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

Halifax, six hundred and seventy-five
miles to the east of Quebec, are too far
away to expect help from the Kingston-
Montreal-Quebec district, which alone
extends three hundred and forty-five
miles from east to west, with Montreal
exactly in the centre.

Again, casting a glance at the net-work
of American railways we will find that
they are admirably adapted for offensive
operations against Canada, while offer-
ing no important railway parallel to and
near the frontier, the destruction of
which would affect the concentration of
troops. The objectives for America are
clearly marked,—Halifax, Quebec, Mon-
treal, Prescott, Kingston, Ottawa,
Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.
Halifax and Vancouver are certain to be
most energetically attacked, for they
will be the naval bases, besides Bermuda,
from which England would carry on her
naval attack on the American coasts and
commerce. The American railway lines
lead admirably for their purpose on to
Quebec, Montreal, Prescott, Kingston,
and Toronto. Albany and Bellows
Falls would be the bases of operations
on the first four-named towns, while the
resources of the greatest western towns—
of Chicago, ete.—can be easily concen-
trated at Detroit, and those of the eastern
towns at Buffalo, for the invasion of the
Niagara district and the surrounding of
the Toronto force. Under these condi-
tions it would seem preferable not to
defend Toronto, but to carry the forty
thousand men supposed to be told off to
it into the Montreal district for a concen-
trated defense, where it can receive
English assistance, his would raise
the active field force to one hundred and
forty thousand men at that point.

Here we may ask, Have we an Eng-
lish commander who has had any expe-
rience in moving and feeding a force of
more than one-sixth of such an one as
this? and where are the arrangements to
be made for the feeding and movement of
such a force? The wheat supplies from
the North-west would certainly be cut
off, as also all the coal supplies, except
those coming under convoy from Eng-
land. The manufacturing and export
trades, on which the prosperity and life
of the Dominion depends, would be al-

1889. ©

most annihilated. How long would the
struggle last under these conditions?
How long would it be before a starving
population would cry for peace, even
with the alternative of political junction
with the United States?

America need not be in any hurry.
She can play a waiting game. It would
all be in her favor. A wealthy, self-
contained country, of vast extent, and
prepared for such sacrifices as she made
in the four years’ Civil War, cannot be
easily attacked. The forces she could raise
at the prospect of war would be suffi-
cient to prevent the British force attempt-
ing a serious invasion to any distance
into the country. The longer the United
States played a waiting game the easier
would the result be for her, for a poor
country like Canada could not stand the
strain; and further, it must be consid-
ered that Canadians would not enter
into the struggle with the same energy
as the Americans. All that the Cana-
dians would gain would be the continu-
ance of the British connection, as to the
value of which they are even now very
much divided, while the American pride
would be raised with the determination
of refusing defeat, and with the prospect,
and even, some may say, the certainty,
of gaining Canada. With such condi-
tions the result seems almost a foregone
conclusion, especially as Americans have
shown that they can fight heroically.
Besides, the Irish element in America
would only embitter the feeling and
confirm the American determination to
win at all costs.

Then, again, between Kingston and
Quebec there is nothing to prevent the
American columns from reaching the
southern bank of the St. Lawrence, and
putting a complete stop to the river
traffic by destroying the canals and con-
structing batteries. The distance is too
great between Kingston and Quebec to
be absolutely protected by any force such
as has been named, however much they
may march and countermarch; for as
one American column is threatened it
can retire, while the others advance and
compel the return of the British field
force. The British ships might even
have to fight their way to Quebec against
both land batteries and gunboats passed

SERVICE SALAD.

553

through the Richelieu canal from Lake
Champlain into the St. Lawrence. ;

Another point is that the want of
depth in the inhabited part of the
Dominion is a serious disadvantage to
the carrying out of a successful strat-
egical defense.

In the above remarks I have supposed
the Canadian troops to be fully equipped
and supplied, and to have a fair propor-
tion of artillery and cavalry to the in-
fantry. But this is only a supposition.
The existing proportion of artillery is
only 1.4 guns to one thousand men, in-
stead of the usual proportion of three to
four guns per one thousand. The cavalry
consists of one sabre to seventeen bayo-
nets, instead of one to six. And of engi-
neers there are only one in four hundred,
instead of one in thirty; while trans-
port and supply corps are entirely want-
ing, and every penny spent on the militia
is grudged.

Naval operations on the lakes would
not lead to important results to either
side. As to the state of the existing
fortifications, and their armaments, it is
best to say nothing.

Now what is the moral to be learnt
from all this ?—that the land defense of
Canada is impracticable, if the Ameri-
cans are in earnest, and that the best
attack on America is a naval one, block-
ading her coasts and stopping her vast
commerce. We might cause a rising in
the south of the States, but it would not
only be ignoble but inhuman to raise ill-
feeling between two parties whose quar-
rels led to the shedding of rivers of blood,
and whose scars are not healed; and,
when the war was over, we might have
to leave our temporary friends to bear
the brunt of a terrible reprisal.

Such a naval war would be cheaper
than a land one, and if such a basis were
decided on for the defense of Canada, it
would render unnecessary the immense
sum now expended ,on an _ inefficient
militia. I would suggest the complete
arming and fortifying of Halifax and
Vancouver on a very large scale, and
the maintenance within the Dominion
of a permanent force of about three
thousand men to put down internal
troubles; the balance of the militia esti-
mates being spent in maintaining a force

5d4

of cruisers to assist England on the seas
in event of any war, whereas the Cana-
dian militia is useless for this purpose.

But how to carry out such a scheme if
considered desirable? The evils of a
democracy are as evident in Canada as
in the United States. How would the
voter like the change, the contractor
especially? It would be decidedly un-
popular with some classes, for the militia
forms an excellent cow to milk to reward
butchers, bakers, tailors, etc., who
vote for the government that finds them
profitable work. Commissions in the
permanent infantry, cavalry, and artil-
lery schools are excellent rewards for the
sons of voters. Here is an Augean stable
for some Hercules in politics to cleanse.
Who will do it?

But the most important point of all
has not yet been dealt with. It has been
assumed that Canada could raise one
hundred and fifty thousand men, for the
sake of showing that even this number
of men is insufficient. Let us now look
at. the real facts of the case and see if
Canada can raise this number on an
emergency. Assuming the battalions to
consist of one thousand men, cavalry
regiments of five hundred men, and
artillery batteries of one hundred and
fifty men (which, however, is a false
assumption), then the total available
force provided by the present organiza-
tion between Toronto and Halifax is
about eighty-two thousand men only,
exclusive of staff and administrative ser-
vices. Adding two and a half per cent.
for brigade, divisional, and corps staffs,
we get about eighty-four thousand men,
This number comprises seventy-eight
battalions, thirty-seven squadrons, fifty-
six guns, and two companies of engi-
neers. At Quebec there are only nine
thousand one hundred men instead of
ten thousand; at Montreal, thirty-eight
thousand seven hundred instead of fifty
thousand; at Kingston, seven thousand
six hundred and fifty instead of twenty
thousand ; and for the Toronto district,
twenty-six thousand four hundred and
fifty instead of forty thousand; and so
on. Consequently, from eight to ten
divisions would have to be formed to
bring the force up to the estimate, and
there is no nucleus on which to form

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

them, while for the existing forces there
are no administrative services, transport,
staff, etc.

These deficiencies alone are almost
sufficient to show the unfeasibility of
undertaking the land defense of Canada.

Further, the complete work of mobil-
izing the existing forces, from the rais-
ing of the men, through all the stages of
arming, equipping, clothing, and com-
bining up to the final concentration at
the strategic points, would occupy an in-
terval of time which could only be cal-
culated by months.

Hitherto we have not considered the
effect of a surprise. It was written in
1862 by a well-known general, ‘‘ If our
minister at Washington is deceased, if
our generals are indolent and supine, a
war may be declared, and an invasion
take place before even the ministry in
England are aware that hostilities are
contemplated.’”” This applies more
strongly now, when every mile of coun-
try is intersected with railways, even
though ocean cables have brought Eng-
land and her colonies into closer union.

The Americans have shown themselves
specially ready in making rapid raids
and quick improvised attacks. These
would be dangerous to Canada, as likely
to interfere with the movements of con-
centration. The railways and canals
being near the frontier and parallel to it,
are very vulnerable, and any interrup-
tion of traffic in the first few days would
be highly detrimental.

We can now imagine what would be
the effect of a sudden advance on Mon-
treal, and on other places, of well-organ-
ized hostile divisions of ten thousand
men each. If they were placed on the
frontier on the tenth day after the dec-
laration of war, they would, in two or
three days after, only meet incompletely
organized forces. Simultaneous opera-
tions at other parts of the frontier will
suffice to keep the troops in those dis-
tricts in their places, especially as they
have no transport to move with. The
Americans would certainly be able to
cut the railway and water communi-
cations, and a complete syncope of trade
would soon produce the required result.

Thus, if England ever considers a war
with the United States necessary, and is

1889.

prepared for the expenditure of blood
and money, her best policy would be to
concentrate the defense of Canada at
Halifax and Vancouver, making at these
two points strongly-intrenched camps
capable of holding many thousand men
each, and complete in every respect to
maintain a long and severe land attack.
With these two naval bases, and with
Bermuda, she could then proceed to har-
ass, even put a stop to, American com-
merce, and destroy her rich sea-port
towns and harbors, a result which
would soon bring about a decision of
some kind or other.

By maintaining a fleet of cruisers,
Canada can help England materially in
this respect, in a war against any naval
power; while the present inefficient
militia is useless for any purpose what-
ever, except for a wanton sacrifice of life,
if a land defense of Canada is attempted
against a serious invasion from the
United States.

It would be very beneficial to Canada
in many respects to station, as of old, a
few English battalions in the Dominion.
In a military point of view they would
form centres of a much-wanted military
instruction and spirit, while socially and
commercially they would be heartily
welcomed, and form a link of the great-
est power in binding the colony to the
mother country, and so aid in binding
the empire together more firmly. Their
presence in the Dominion would tend to
make people realize their connection
with England, for they have nothing
that does that now ; while they could, in
extreme emergencies, assist the perma-
nent colonial force proposed, in their
duties. Other reasons could be added,
but I would not care to state them pub-
licly here, though they are probably
essential for preserving the unity of the
Dominion in the future.

‘( VERAX.”’

A Racer of the Seas.

Has the reader ever stood in the engine-
room of an ocean steamer when she was
plunging through an Atlantic gale at
the rate of seventeen or more knots an
hour? Even if he has done so, and
been awed by the experience, it is not
likely that he has been able to fully re-

SERVICE SALAD.

555d

alize the immensity of the power exerted.
He needs some standard of comparison,
and for that purpose we may offer him ~
the ancient galley, and repeat a passage
from the address made by Sir Frederick
Bramwell at the meeting of the British
Association last September: ‘‘ Compare
a galley, a vessel propelled by oars, with
the modern Atlantic liner. ... Take
her length as some 600 feet, and as-
sume that place be found for as many as
400 oars on each side, each oar worked
by three men, or 2400 men; and allow
that six men under these conditions
could develop work equal to one horse-
power; weshould have 400 horse-power.
Double the number of men, and we
should have 800 horse-power, with 4800
men at work, and at least the same num-
ber in reserve, if the journey is to be
carried on continuously. Contrast the
puny result thus obtained with the 19,500
horse-power given forth by a large
prime-mover of the present day, such
power requiring on the above mode of
calculation 117,000 men at work and
117,000 men in reserve; and those to be
carried in a vessel less than 600 feet in
length. Even if it was possible to carry
this number of men in such a vessel, by
no conceivable means could their power
be utilized so as to impart to it a speed
of twenty knots an hour.—From ‘ The
Building of an Ocean Greyhound,” by
Wititram H. Riperne, in the April
Scribner’s.

Military Duels in France.

THE death of a young soldier of the
Sixteenth -Dragoons from wounds re-
ceived in a duel has led to a lively dis-
cussion in the French papers on the
practice of dueling in the army. On
this subject the Petit Parisien has an
interesting article. In some regiments,
it appears, duels are rare, owing to the
firmness of the colonels, but in others
affairs of honor are a matter of daily
occurrence. In the cavalry regiments
especially this practice flourishes. When
two soldiers have a dispute, so long as
they do not come to blows they need not
fight unless they wish to; but a box set-
tles the matter, and, whether they like it
or not, they must meet, sword in hand,

556

the next morning in the riding-school.
The captain, often without consulting
the parties interested, asks permission
from the colonel for the rencontre, and
the latter nine times out of ten grants it.
Nothing then can prevent the duel. The
adversaries may be only too glad to be
reconciled, but it is all to no purpose;
fight they must. The fencing-master is
notified. He has the sabres sharpened.
Then each unlucky soldier spends the
evening in the salle d’armes, where he
receives counsel and advice from the
prévéts, each one of whom has an in-
fallible secret stroke or botte to teach
him.

It is always in the riding-school that
the affair takes place. About eight
o’clock in the morning [the combatants
arrive, accompanied by their seconds.
Then comes the fencing-master, followed
by a prévét, who carries the two sabres.
This fellow always takes delight in in-
forming the two adversaries that the
sabres are sharpened with equal care, so
that one will cut just as well as the other.
Then comes the lieutenant charged with
the duty of conducting the affair. He
never fails to make light of the situation,
for the purpose of encouraging the
heroes. The surgeon then comes upon
the scene. He appears with an air of ill
humor, as if he was plagued by the
thing. He is followed by a hospital
steward bearing a lot of bandage and
lint, a big dish of water with a sponge
in the middle, and a set of surgical
instruments, enough altogether to scare
the bravest of the brave.

‘Can we begin ?’’ asks the officer.

‘‘ Begin,’’ replies the deztor.

Then the gladiators take off their
tunics and shirts and appear naked to
the waist, no matter how cold the
weather is. They are placed in position.
The officer says, ‘‘ Go it!’ Then the fight
begins, superintended by the fencing-
master, whose duty it is to parry the
dangerous blows. At last one of the
men is hit, and the affair is finished.

In the majority of cases the duel ends
by the defeated party's treating all hands
at the canteen. But when old soldiers
are engaged, or non-commissioned offi-
cers skilled in fencing, the military duels
too often terminate otherwise.

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

From Dr. Holmes’s Poem addressed
to James Russell Lowell on his
Seventieth Birthday.

(From the April Atlantic.)

WuHo is the poet? He whom Nature
chose

In that sweet season when she made the
rose.

Though, with the changes of our colder
clime,

His birthday will come somewhat out of
time,

Through all the shivering winter’s frost
and chill

The bloom and fragrance cling around it
still.

He is the poet who can stoop to read

The secret hidden in a way-side weed ;

Whom June’s warm breath with child-
like rapture fills,

Whose spirit ‘‘dances with the daffo-
dils ;’’

Whom noble deeds with noble thoughts
inspire

And lend his verse the true Promethean
fire ;

Who drinks the waters of enchanted
streams

That wind and wander through the land
of dreams;

For whom the unreal is the real world,

Its fairer flowers with brighter dews
impearled.

He looks a mortal till he spreads his
wings,—

He seems an angel when he soars and
sings !

Behold the poet !
long,

Whom Elmwood’s nursery cradled into
song!

Heaven his days pro-

Durine the small-arm target season
at one of our large artillery posts, not
long ago, considerable rivalry developed
among the batteries in regard to the
number of “marksmen” each would be
able to ‘‘qualify’’ within the allotted
time. Battery ‘“‘G,’’ —— Artillery, is one
that, by reason of its efficient captain,
worthy subalterns, and _ carefully-
selected enlisted men, had, in former
seasons, either led the target record of
the post or stood very high on it, and,
as a consequence, at the time referred to,

1889.

felt the prodding of ambitious spur
more keenly, perhaps, than the other
batteries. Sergeant K. of the battery,
particularly, took the matter of the
battery’s reputation to heart, and, being
a good shot himself, was on hand as
an ever-ready coach for recruits, and
often, borne on the wings of his anx-
iety, he would modestly offer sugges-
tions to a poor-shooting subaltern. He
had, on one occasion, succeeded in a
respectful and judicious way by his ad-
vice in so far assisting Lieutenant M.
along the road to a marksman’s record
that, to his immense delight, he found
the lieutenant at the last range with two
shooting days in which to complete his
marksman’s score. On the last day, it
happened that the lieutenant had but
one qualifying score, of five shots, to
make at the six-hundred-yards’ range,
and the sergeant. was fairly quivering
with anxiety. The lieutenant took the
‘‘prone’”’ position for the final score.
The sergeant sat down on the ground
near him on the right. Corporal Jones
sat on the left, with binocular glass in
hand, to watch the target signals. The
first shot was signaled a ‘“ 4,’’ the second
a ‘2;’’ another ‘‘2’? would ruin the
whole record ; it was an emergency that
seemed to the sergeant to demand man-
ual treatment, so, edging slowly and
respectfally up to the lieutenant until
his left elbow rested gently against the
lieutenant’s side, he looked despairingly
over to Corporal Jones and called softly
to him, ‘I say, corporal, brace up the
loot’nent on yer side, I'll stiddy ’im
here!”

The persistent zeal of the sergeant
culminating in this form, with his
excessively anxious manner, and the
absurd impropriety of the whole pro-
ceeding, so convulsed the loot’nent in-
wardly, that all was lost,—except the
reputation of the good old sergeant as
a coach.

The above is so characteristic of the
faithful, zealous, respectful old non-
commissioned officer, who exists as a
distinct type in our service, that it
seemed worthy of preservation. What
officer has not served with him? Erring
only occasionally in overzeal, he stands
the embodiment of all that is stanch,

SERVICE SALAD.

557

true, devoted. The affectionate regard
that springs up for him is one of the
dearest things in official life, possibly
the only real sentimental feature it has.

In an old Welsh ballad, handed down
from bard to bard through centuries,
sung now with as much zealous and
affectionate fervor as it was sung in the
days of its origin, the title of the song
being “ Harri Ddu’’ (in English, Black
Sir Harry Salusbury), the poet tells us
what a good soldier should be, when he
relates what a good soldier was.

“ Black was his plume ; black was his shield.
Braver ne’er did faulchion wield.

Showers of arrows rattled round him in the battle ;
But he knew not how to yield.

When a gallant foeman lay conquered on the plain,
Mercy from Sir Harry he never asked in vain.
Faithful unto death to friends he’d ever prove,
And none than he were e’er more true in love.

In peaceful halls, when he passed by,

The fair for him would often sigh.

Oft, with words of power, he, in lady’s bower,

Sang, with kindling eye, of love for many an hour.
Long the bard shall sing the glories of his fame,
And in deathless verses preserve his noble name.
Black Sir Harry, with the dark and sparkling eye,
Like the song we sing, he shall never die.”

And another of the dear old heart-
stirring Welsh ballads, in words which
are doubtless familiar to many of Cam-
bria’s sons who are now living under the
protection of the ‘‘stars and stripes,”
reminds the soldier what his duty is.
It is a famous War Song, this.

“Hark! Afar the bugle sounding!
Comrades, follow, one and all!
We are now the foe surrounding:
He shall fight us, he shall fall.
Every soldier’s glorious duty
Is to conquer, or, to die ;
To deserve the smiles of beauty,
Or, in sculptured tomb to lie.
Side by side, keep cool and ready!
Firmly grasp the gleaming sword!
Eager, valiant hearts, be steady !
Wait but for the well-known word!
Then the soldier’s glorious duty
Is to conquer, or, to die;
To deserve the smiles of beauty,
Or, in sculptured tomb to lie.
Let each man, this day recalling,
Tell how have we fought and bled!
Names of those around us falling
Shall on Honor’s scroll be read!
For the soldier's glorious duty
Is to conquer, or, to die;
To deserve the smiles of beauty,
Or, in sculptured tomb to lie.”
P. 3, B.S.

558

Kine Louis VI. of France was one
who combined the soldier and the hu-
morist in his own person; and, judging
from the story told of him, he must have
been extremely practical in his witty
moments.

In the uproar of battle, when he was
cut off from his own men, one of the
enemy seized his bridle, and, thinking
he had secured the king as a prisoner,
he called out, ‘‘ The king is taken !’’

‘No, sir!’ said bis Majesty, and as
he spoke he struck the soldier lifeless to
the ground,—*‘ No, sir! the king is never
taken,—not even at chess.”’

Mason CHARLES SMART, surgeon
United States Army, has compiled and
published, through the house of William
Wood & Co., New York, a ‘‘ Hand-book
for the Hospital Corps.” This little
book, which typographically and in style
of binding is a gem, is a veritable handy
guide, in cases of emergency or illness,
not only to the hospital corps but to
every officer and soldier in the service,
regular and volunteer. It ought to be
in every company library.

From Belford, Clarke & Co., pub-
lishers, of Chicago, we have received a
‘« Blue-Grass Thoroughbred,’’ a sporting
novel, by Tom Johnson. This is the
story of a gallant, honorable, dashing
Kentuckian, whose business in life is the
breeding and racing of thoroughbred
horses. The book is delightfully written
and without a dull page. The writer is
well up in racing matters, and knows
all about Kentucky men, women, and
horses.

AT the battle of Dettingen the French
cavalry charged and broke into a Scotch

regiment formed in square. When the
fight was over King George rode up to
the Scotch colonel and said, angrily,
‘Well, sir! I hear that the French got
into your square to-day!’’ The old
Highlander laughed as he replied to his
sovereign, ‘‘ Aye, aye, your Majesty;
but they did na get out again !’’

Tue Lippincotts have issued a hand-
some paper edition of “Dr. Rameau,”

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey from
the French of Georges Ohnet. This is
perhaps the novel of the season. It has
made a great sensation abroad and bids
fair to become as popular and as much
talked about as the wonderful ‘“ Robert
Elsmere.”

From Ticknor & Co., of Boston, comes
a very charming novel with the pretty
title of “‘ Under Green Apple Boughs.’”’
It is by Helen Campbell, and is well
worthy a place in the popular Ticknor
Series of novels.

CuanGine Its TirLe.—The well-known firm
of Oliver Ditson & Co., Music Publishers, will
hereafter be known as Oliver Ditson Com-
pany. Mr. Charles H. Ditson, in the new cor-
poration, represents the name so familiar to
every newspaper reader. The firm includes
Mr. John C. Haynes and Charles H. Ditson
(former partners), and five gentlemen who
have hitherto held prominent positions in the
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia stores.
The successful firm enters on the second half-
century of its existence with a large stock and
extensive business, and with every probability
of large and rapid increase.

Ir has recently been demonstrated that
some articles of merchandise, which have
been before the public of England for the last
half-century, are nine times more used there
than all other principal patent medicines put
together. We refer to Beecuam’s Pits, which,
in order to meet the wishes and requirements
expressed by Americans, many of whom
already know their value, are now introduced
in such a thorough manner that no home need
be without them in America. We believe
this shrewd and discerning people will soon
join in the universal testimony that they “are
worth a guinea a box,” although they can be
purchased of druggists for but twenty-five
cents. These pills are round and will there-
fore roll. They have already rolled into every
English-speaking country in the world, and
they are still rolling. All sufferers from in-
digestion, flatulency, constipation, and all
other forms of stomach and liver troubles
have now this famous and inexpensive remedy
within their reach; but should they find,
upon inquiry, that their druggist does not
keep Bercuam’s Pitts, they can send twenty-
five cents to the General Agents for the United
States, B. F. Allen & Co., 365 Canal Street,
New York City, who will promptly mail them
to any address.

MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION
OF THE UNITED STATES.

HEAD-QUARTERS COMMANDERY OF THE
STaTE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Orrcutar No. 7.
Series of 1889. > PHitapEeLpata, March 12, 1889.
Whole No. 174.

I. The following extract from the law
approved March 8, 1889, by His Excel-
lency James A. Beaver, Governor of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is pro-
mulgated for the information of Com-
panions :

“An Act to prevent persons from un-
lawfully using or wearing the Insignia or
Rosette of the Military Order of the
Loyal Legion of the United States. . .

“Sxcrion 1. Be it enacted by the Sen-
ate and House of Representatives of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Gen-
eral Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted
by the authority of the same, That any
person who shall willfully wear the In-
signia or Rosette of the Military’ Order
of the Loyal Legion of the United
States ... or use the same to obtain
aid or assistance within this State, un-
less he shall be entitled to use or wear
the same under the Constitution and By-
Laws, Rules and Regulations of such or-
ganization, shall be guilty of misde-
meanor, and upon conviction shall be
one ey by a fine not to exceed one

undred dollars.

“Section 2. This act shall take ef-
fect immediately.”’

By command of
Bvt. Maj.-Gen. D. McM. Grzaga, U.S.V.,

Commander.
P. Nicuotson, Bvt. Lt.-Col.
US.V., Recorder.

JOHN

The following-named gentlemen have
been elected Companions of the Military
Order of the Loyal Legion:

Massachusetts Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To THE First Ciass.—Charles Bean
Amory, Bvt. Maj. U.S.V.; Edward
Franklin Everett, 2d Lt. U.S.V.;
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Col.

U.S.V.; William Henry Hurd, 2d
Lt. U.S.V.; William Ambrose Mc-
Ginnis, Lt. U.S.V.; Thomas R. Rod-
man, Capt. U.S.V.; Nathan Dame
Stoodley, Maj. U.S.V.

To THE SEconp Crass. — Charles
Packard Sawyer (by inheritance).

California Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 13, 1889.

To tHe First Criass.—Commander
James Duncan Graham, U.S.N.;
Maj. James Thomas Ghiselin, late
Surg. U.S.A., Bvt. Col. U.S.A. ; Capt.
Cornelious Stewart Master, Bvt. Maj.
U.S.V.; Capt. Henry Samuel Welton,
late U.S.A.; Capt. Charles Hall Rock-
well, U.S.V.; Capt, Charles Carroll Al-
len, U.S.V.; Capt. Michael Danison,
U.S.V.; Capt. James Kirby Secord,
U.S.V.; 1st Lt. Henry George Rollins,
U.S.V.; 1st Lt. Alexander Erwin Min-
tie, U.S.V.; 2d Lt. Eugene Lehe,
U.S.V.

Wisconsin Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To THE First Crass. — George
Washington Burchard, Maj. U.S.V.;
David Whitney Curtis, Capt. U.S.V.;
Milton Ewen, Capt. U.S.V. ©

To tHE SEconp OLass. — James
Cooper Ayres, Capt. U.S.A.

Illinois Commandery.

Stated Meeting held February 14, 1889.

To THE First Cxiass.—John Wil-
liam Ross, Acting Efsign U.S.N.

To tHe Szrconp Ciass.—Leslie Don
Puterbaugh.

District of Columbia Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To THE First Ciass.—Capt. Charles
Herbert White, U.S.V. (postponed
from last meeting) ; Bvt. Lt.-Col. Wal-
ter Simonds Franklin, late U.S.A.;

560

Bvt. Maj. ‘William Lacy Kenly,
U.S.V.; Lt. Joseph Newell Whitney,
U.8.V.; Lt.-Col. James Adin Jewell,
U.S.V.; Bvt. Capt. Albion Bomboy
Jameson, U.S.V.; Maj. Adolph von
Haake, U.S.V.; Pay Director Gilbert
E. Thornton, U.S.N.; Col. Felix Alex-
ander Reeve, U.S.V.

Ohio Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To THE First CLass.—Thomas Mc-
Millan Turner, Bvt. Maj. U.S.V.;
William Christie Johnson, 2d Lt.
U.S.V.; Barnet Neel Lindsey, Capt.
U.S.V.; Milton McCoy, Capt. U.S.V.;
Caradoc Carlton Jenkins, Ist Lt.
U.8.V.; Joseph Lewis Hilt, late Capt.
U.S.V.; James William Foley, Capt.
U.8.V. ; Edmund Lewis McCallay, late
Ist Lt. U.S.A.; George Maley Bacon,
Capt. U.S.V.; John F. Horr, Ist Lt.
U.S8.V.

To tHE Srconp Crass.— Negley
Dakin Cochran, Robert Woodbridge.

Michigan Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To tHE First Crass. — William
Keith, lst Lt. U.S.V.; Charles E.
Foote, Ist Lt. U.S.V.; Arthur Marks,
Capt. U.S.V.; Benjamin F. Briscoe,
Capt. U.S.V.; Darius D. Thorp, 2d Lt.
UBT.

To tHE Sgconp Crass. — August
Goeble, Jr.

To THE TurrpD Cass. — Hon. David
H. Jerome, Ex-Governor of Michigan.

Minnesota Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To ror First Cass. — George Lee
Baker, 2d Lt. U.S.V.; Charles Henry
Brush, Lt.-Col. U.S.V.; William Ed-
ward Hull, U.S.V.; George Horace
Morgan, Ist Lt. (by inheritance).

Oregon Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To THE First CLAass.— James Tate
Berry, Ist Lt. U.S.V.; John Templeton
Newland, Capt. U.S.V.; William
Bloomfield Watkins (by inheritance) ;
Winslow S. Myers, 2d Lt. U.S.V.

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

Nebraska Commandery.
Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.
To THE First Crass. — Edward

Lynch, 2d Lt. U.S.A.; Bvt. Col. John
S. Hoover, U.S.V.

Kansas Commandery.

Stated meeting held March 6, 1889.

To THE First Ciass.—Isaac A.
Taylor, Capt. U.S.V.; Nathaniel A.
Adams, Maj. U.S.V.; Charles Bard
Hamilton, Ist Lt. U.S.V.; Horace
Jeremiah Smith, Capt. U.S.V.; Joel
Moody, Capt. U.S.V.; William A.
Ogden, Bvt. Capt. U.S.V.; William
W. Smith, Maj. U.S.V.; Joseph Klein-
field, Bvt. Capt. U.S.V.

Indiana Commandery.

Stated meeting held February | 14,
1889,

To THE First CLass. — Maj. Martin
L. Bundy, U.S.V.; Col. John G. Clark,
U.S.V.; Lt.-Col. J. Marion Dresser,
U.S.V.; Lt. Stephen K. Fletcher,
U.S.V.; Lt. Abraham H. Landis,
U.S.V.; Maj. James L. Thompson,
U.S.V.; Lt. John L. Jaryan, U.S.V.

TRANSFERS.

Massachusetts Commandery.
Capt. Josiah A. Osgood, to California
Commandery.

California Commandery.

Maj. Daniel Read Larned, U.S.A.,
to District of Columbia Commandery ;
Harry Clifford Stuart (second class,
etc.), Colorado Commandery.

Illinois Commandery,
Brig.-Gen. Joseph C. Breckinridge,
to District of Columbia Commandery.

District of Columbia Commandery.
Bvt. Brig.-Gen, George D. Ruggles,
to California Commandery.

Ohio Commandery.
Capt. Daniel W. Comstock, U.S.V.,
to Indiana Commandery.

New York Commandery.
Bvt. Col. Bernard J. D. Irwin, U.S.A.,
and Ist Lt. Robt. H. Patterson, U.S.A.,
to California Commandery.

LOYAL LEGION.

NECROLOGY.

California Commandery.
Capt. Silas Pettit Ford, U.S.V., Feb-
ruary 19, 1889.

Illinois Commandery.
Chaplain Albert Z. Gray, February
27, 1889.

District of Colambia Commandery.
Bvt. Maj.-Gen. Henry J. Hart, Feb-
ruary 11, 1889.

Ohio Commandery.
Lt.-Col. Frank Lynch, U.S.V., Feb-
ruary 27, 1889. Bvt. Col. James Eli
Stewart, U.S.V., March 3, 1889.

New York Commandery.
Capt. William W. Stephenson,
U.S.V., March 4, 1889.

LOYAL LEGION NOTES.

THE CALIFORNIA COMMANDERY held
a meeting January 18, 1889, at Los
Angeles, and at the banquet which
followed the meeting several bright and
felicitous addresses were delivered. Com-
panion Thomas Mitchell, of the Pennsyl-
vania Commandery, to the toast of ‘‘ The
Kindred Organizations,—The Cincinnati
and The Loyal Legion,”—spoke as fol-
lows:

‘¢ COMMANDER AND CoMPANIONS,—It
is eminently proper that upon an occa-
sion like this we should link together in
our thoughts ‘ The Society of the Cincin-
nati’ and ‘The Loyal Legion.’ Both
are military orders, but founded not to
perpetuate military rank and power, the
pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious
war, but to cherish the memories of past
wars; to inculcate to the latest ages the
duty of laying down in peace arms as-
sumed for public defense; to continue
the mutual friendships begun under the
pressure of common danger ; to perpetu-
ate sentiments of patriotism and loyalty,
benevolence and fraternal fellowship.
Both were instituted by the officers of
two great armies and navies, about to
disband forever, but whose deeds will

561

live in history, in legend and in song, as
long as time shall last, though history
should repeat itself and the very names °
of England and the United States should
be blotted from the map of the earth;
whose gallant leaders, chief among the
few, the immortal few, who were not
born to die, will live in the memory of
future ages like the heroes of Ilium and
Troy, long after the places of their birth
and burial have been forgotten, and the
tongue which they spoke has become ob-
solete, the Army of the Revolution, the
Grand Army of the Republic.

‘The first wrested from the tyrant’s
hand the magnificent heritage which we
enjoy; made this glorious emblem of our
liberty famous among the flags of the
world; wrote in letters of living light
on the pages of history the truths of the
Declaration of Independence, and laid
the foundations of a great nation where
the priceless blessings of civil and relig-
ious liberty might be enjoyed ‘by all.
The other preserved in its integrity the
birthright which they inherited ; vindi-
cated the flag, which, when it came into
their hands, was known and honored
throughout the world; confirmed and
enlarged the operation of those self-evi-
dent truths which their ancestors had
declared, and in their turn declared that
the principles which those ancestors had
sealed with their blood should not perish
from the earth.

‘‘ The Society of the Cincinnati had its
origin at a meeting of officers held at
the cantonment on the Hudson River on
May 10, 1783, at which time the form of
institution was agreed to. The original
rough draft in the handwriting of General
Knox is still extant. It was determined
that the first general meeting should be
held in May, 1784, and in the meanwhile
temporary officers were chosen: General
Washington as President-General, and
General Knox as Treasurer.

“The Society met at Philadelphia on
Tuesday, May 4, 1784, and each of the
thirteen States were represented by duly
elected delegates. The minutes of the
meeting, in the handwriting of Win-
throp Sargent, are extant and were pub-
lished by the Historical Society of Penn-
sylvania in 1858. The proceedings were
conducted with great dignity, General

562

Washington presiding. Among other
things, it was resolved that the Society
should be divided into State meetings to
be held on the Anniversary of Indepen-
dence, and that there should be a meet-
ing of the Society, to consist of the offi-
cers and representation from each State
Society, at least once in three years, on
the first Monday in May, at such places
as the President should direct. Member-
ship was to consist of the commissioned
and brevet officers of the army and navy
of the United States, who had served
three years and who left the service
with reputation, and such officers who
were in actual service at the close of the
war, and all the principal staff officers
of the Continental Army, the French
ministers, all generals’ and colonels and
admirals and captains in the French
army and navy who had co-operated
with the armies of the United States in
their exertions for liberty.

“General Washington was unani-
mously chosen President ; General Gates,
Vice-President ; and General Knox, Sec-
retary.

‘‘At this meeting, also, the order of
badge of the Society and its form of
diploma was adopted.

‘Incredible as it may seem, the So-
ciety approved of and officered by these
gallant patriots was bitterly attacked on
all sides, and principally for what must
strike us as amusing, viz., that it was
an attempt to found a military aristoc-
racy, for the Eagle was to descend from
the father to the son according to the
law of primogeniture, or, on a failure of
issue, to his collateral heirs in the due
line of inheritance forever. So obnox-
ious was this feature deemed, that it was
made the subject of inquiry by the Legis-
latures of several of the States, and
Rhode Island disfranchised such of its
citizens as were members of the Society,
while Massachusetts declared it to be
‘dangerous to the peace, liberty, and
safety of the Union.’

‘‘In the minutes of the meeting at
Philadelphia in May, 1784, already re-
ferred to, this matter was fully discussed,
and it is recorded that ‘General Wash-
ington, in confidence, introduced a re-
port of a committee of Congress, that
no person holding an hereditary title or

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

order of nobility should be eligible to
citizenship in the new state they were
about to establish, and declared that he
knew that this was leveled at our in-
stitution, and that our friends had pre-
vented it passing into resolution till the
result of this meeting should be known,
but that if we did not make it conforma-
ble to their sense of republican principles
we might expect every discouragement,
and even persecution, from them and the
States severally.’

‘¢ An attempt was made to propitiate the
public sentiment, and the Society recom-
mended to the State Societies certain
modifications of the institution, but as
the assent of all the States was necessary
to the change, and that assent was never
given, the Society retains to-day the he-
reditary feature, The opposition seems to
have soon died out, and as some indica-
tion of the estimation in which the So-
ciety was held when the time for its next
general meeting came round, it appears
that the convention which adopted the
Constitution of the United States was
convened to meet in Philadelphia in
May, 1787, with direct reference to the
fact that the Cincinnati would meet
there on the first Monday of the same
month, and in order to give Washington
an opportunity of presiding over both
sittings.

“This brief sketch would be incom-
plete without some reference to the Cin-
cinnati in France. No foreign decora-
tion was permitted to be worn at the
French Court, except the Golden Fleece ;
but Lafayette, kneeling at the throne of
his most Christian Majesty, obtained for
the French Cincinnati the special privi-
lege of appearing at Court with the new
decoration, and the Society acquired a
distinction in the gay capital of France
which it never possessed at home. Ro-
chambeau, Lafayette, and a number of
our distinguished allies, were among its
members, and, along with the cross of
the ancient and honorable Order of St.
Louis, were proud to wear the Eagle of
the Cincinnati.

“Time will not permit me to trace the
subsequent history of the Society. We
all know how groundless were the fears
entertained at its foundation.

‘‘ Washington, the great American

1889.

Cincinnatus, was with difficulty per-
suaded to leave his beloved farm to assume
again public duties, and finally, after
eight years of service to the Republic,
retired to the private life which was so
dear to his heart. He remained Presi-
dent of the Society, however, until his
death. The rest of the Cincinnati, with
the men whom they commanded, beat
their swords into plowshares and their
spears into pruning-hooks, and became
peaceful and industrious citizens of the
great Republic which realized in great
measure the vision of the prophet,—
‘Every man dwelt under his own vine
and his cwn fig-tree, and there was no
man to make them afraid.’

“The Society has ceased to exist in at
least half of the original thirteen States,
and is to-day, to the great mass of the
people, scarce the shadow of a name.
And it is probable that not one in a
thousand of the citizens of that great
city of Ohio, which, though it lies far
east from us, proudly styles itself the
‘Queen of the West,’ knows that its
name commemorates the military So-
ciety which a hundred years ago Mr.
Adams thought was ‘the first step taken
to deface the beauty of our Temple of
Liberty.’

‘The Loyal Legion originated at Phila-
delphia in April, 1865. For a week past
the North had been wild with rejoicings.
The cruel war was over ; and the mothers,
the old men, and the maidens were look-
ing forward with joy to the return of
their boys in blue. Suddenly the eyes
that were bright with gladness were
dimmed with tears of mingled wrath and
passionate grief, for the beloved Presi-
dent, who had borne on his shoulders
through the dark days of the war the
responsibilities and the sorrows of the
whole nation, had been foully stricken
down in its hour of triumph. Arrange-
ments were being made on all sides to
do honor to his mortal remains, and,
among others, the officers of the army in
Philadelphia assembled to take measures
to attend the funeral ina body. It was
at this meeting that the idea of the
Legion originated, but only the first
three names on our rolls are recorded
as founders of the Order. Five or six
new members were elected April 20,

LOYAL LEGION.

563

and seven or eight July 26, 1865. There
were no elections then until September,
but thereafter new members were elected -
every month, separate Commanderies
were formed in a number of the States,
and the Order has continued to grow
ever since. I had the honor to be elected
July 26, 1865, and was enrolled as Num-
ber 16.”’

The fourth regular toast was ‘‘ Com-
panions by Inheritance,” responded to by
Companion Allen T. Bird, as follows:

‘‘ COMMANDER AND CoMPANIONS,—In
speaking to-night in behalf of those to
whom the great and heroic events the
Loyal Legion was designed to commem-
orate will soon be but a tradition, it is
my fortune to speak not only for them
but for you; and not only for them but
to them.

‘‘ Whilst holding my companionship
in the Loyal Legion by virtue of my
sire’s achievements; whilst in those tre-
mendous events where the part he bore
would give him a place at this board to-
night, were he on this side of that myste-
rious curtain we all must penetrate, I
held no commission and bore no com-
mand. Still, in a portion of that tremen-
dous time, when every hour was big with
consequence to the Republic, it was my
fortune to obey. Although the sword
hanging on my wall at home was not in
my hand when drawn in defense of the
Republic, I can proudly say I followed
where it led.

‘« With memories such as come throng-
ing to my mind whenever the Loyal
Legion is mentioned, I can assure those
Companions who, like myself, wear their
insignia by inherited right, that the
services rendered our common country
and humanity, by the heroic men from
whose loins they sprang, were of the
highest order and most heroic nature.
In recounting to them the splendors and
glories of the Great Republic, and the
terrible sacrifice of lives, blood, and
treasure made to maintain its perpetuity,
I can assure them that the blessings of
free government they enjoy, and their
children will enjoy forever, are worth all
they cost; and were the sacrifice de-
manded an hundred-fold greater, it would
have been given as cheerfully and un-
reservedly as was given what was taken.

564

And I can admonish them that should
danger to the Republic come again, it
will be their duty to peril everything
in her defense; I can admonish them
that their fathers made history ‘and
wrought it well from the fiery crucible
of awful war, beneath the Titanic blows
of deadly battle; and I can assure you
that in emulation of your lofty spirit,
should the imperiled Republic ever de-
mand their services, they will write upon
the scroll of American history a page
that will be a fitting sequel to the one
you wrote with fire and steel.

‘‘Companions, the services you ren-
dered the cause of constitutional liberty
and human rights make a magnificent
heritage that we accept with gratitude
and will transmit to posterity with pride.
It will be a proud boast to our children
to the remotest generation to say, ‘In
my veins flows the blood of a soldier of
the Republic, and here are the proofs ;
here is the insignia he wore in the Loyal
Legion, and there hangs the sword with
which he led heroes to deeds of sublime
devotion and lofty daring.’

‘« Doubtless you all remember one of
those little incidents related by Corporal
Tanner—of the many incidents he relates
so well—about a comrade of the Grand
Army, a professional gentleman some-
where in the East, who has hanging on
the walls of his library four swords that
have seen service. The first, a blade of
an ancient and antique pattern, was
wielded by his great-grandfather in the
revolutionary army, that beneath the
immortal Washington’s lead conquered
independence and liberty; the second,
another quaint and curious brand, in the
hand of his grandfather played an hon-
orable part in the War of 1812; beneath
this a blade, of a more modern date, his
father bore on Angostura’s bloody plain,
and ‘where Orizaba’s glittering summit
pierces a tropic sky,’ when that brave
band of heroes carried the starry banner
in victory through the vale of Anahuac
and flung it in triumph from the palace
of Montezuma and Iturbide; while
underneath all hangs a battered blade of
a pattern familiar to us all, with which

THE UNITED SERVICE.

May

he led himself one of those gallant regi-
ments with which Sheridan sent Early
whirling up the valley and rode down
Stewart in dire disaster at Yellow Horse
Tavern. As Tanner related this impres-
sive incident the thought flashed across
my mind, ‘ What a magnificent ancestry
that man can transmit to posterity.’
Better far than that of any plumed
knight, coroneted duke, or belted earl.
Too frequently are such distinctions the
reward of mean and villainous service
to royal prerogative or the shameful
badge marking the posterity of a regal
harlot. But here was the visible record
of four successive generations of devotion
to the cause of constitutional liberty and
human rights. I can recall no more
splendid ancestry to transmit to posterity,
unless it be that of that gallant gentle-
man at Indianapolis, our comrade and
companion, whose name was first cut
upon the tablets of Fame by the sword
of a regicide across the water, and whose
family in every conflict since has con-
tributed a great and splendid name to
that great and glorious cause, his own in
its refulgent splendor outshining all.

‘Tt is in contemplation of instances
such as these that Companions by inher-
itance reach a realizing sense of the
splendor and value of their glorious
birthright, and, realizing it, conceive
the determination and duty of preserv-
ing untarnished for transmission to those
that will follow them the record of a
noble name.’’

REFERRING to the addition of two
civilian experts to assist in the publica-
tion of the official records of the War of
the Rebellion, the Philadelphia Inquirer
says, ‘‘ There is only one civilian really
distinguished in such matters, and that
is Colonel John P. Nicholson, who nat-
urally will have a place on the board.
If another can be found of equal famil-
iarity with the records of the war, the im-
portant work so well begun by Colonel
Scott, United States Army, can be carried
on with even greater usefulness.’’—Army
and Navy Journal.

Plate to illustrate “Tropical Cyclones,’ by Everett Hayden.—United Service Magazine, June 1889.

0 ee _ | — — ee ot)

WEST INDIAN HURRICANES. :
rises, peti may be encountered during any month of the year, yet there is such a marked increase in
| their number and violence during July, August, September and October, that these four months constitute what is
called the hurricane season. +4 pe
HuRRIcaNE REGIONS.—The tropics north of the 10th parallel, the Caribbean sea, gulf of Mexico,
and a broad belt curving NW’d from about St. Thomas and following the Gulf stream towards the A
No |
rf

Grand banks of Newfoundland. fl
EARLIEST INDICATIONS.—Unusually high barometer, with cool, dry, fresh winds, and very aA
transparent atmos A long, low ocean swell from the direction of the distant storm.
Light, feathery plumes of cirrus clouds, radiating from a point on the horizon
where a whitish arc indicates the bearing of the center. — ,
UnastaxaB.e sions.—As the cirrus veil spreads overhead, with
about the sun and moon, the barometer begins to fall, dlowly but steadily,
and the ocean swell increases. The air becomes heavy, hot and moist.
| Dark red and violet tints are seen at dawn and twilight. The heavy
cloud-bank of the hurricane soon appears on the horizon, like a 4.
distant mountain range’, The barometer falls more rapidly and the wee
O}}| wind freshens, with occasional squalls of fine, misty rain. -f
GENERAL SIZE AND VELOCITY OF PROGRESSION.—The storm / 744
area is smaller in the tropics than farther north, the cloud ring
averaging about 500 miles in diameter, and the region of
| stormy winds 300 miles, or even less. _ In low latitades the
entire storm moves W’d and NW’d, about 17 miles an
hour; in middle latitudes, NW’d and N’d, moving
more slowly as it- recurves; and finally NE’d, with
a velocity of translation of 20 or even 30 miles an
| hour, ite area increasing rapidly ss it follows
| the Gulf stream toward the Grand banks “
across the Atlantic
| toward northern Europe.

a

.

and sweeps
no

oO

(

;
|
|
|

eH

gf is

‘

HURRICANE CHART.
BAY OF NORTH AMERICA,

Notz.—The scale of this Chart small, but
corded be a ine oa

Diagram A.—Illustrating the circulation of wind toward and around the center of low barometer in a tropical cyclone, northern hemisphere. The dangerous winds occur in the inner
whirls, "Inthe southern hemisphere the circulation is reversed, as indicated by looking at the back of this diagram when held up to the light (reading E. for W., and W. for B.).

Diagrams.Nos. 1, 2, 3.—For practical use in finding the position of a vessel relative to the center of a tropical cyclone, northern hemisphere, by means of the direction of the wind and
fall of the barometer. The ovals are isobars.. The dotted lines are constructed as indicated in diagram A. The shaded areas are the regions where it is specially dangerous for a vessel.

.